100 Ways Robin's Like a Banana
by Lizzylizzer
Summary: As an advertising favor to the city, the Titans are taking classes at the local arts school. Raven needs to write a comparative paper, and picks an unfortunate topic. How exactly is Robin like a banana, besides their both being fruits?
1. 1 to 10

One Hundred Ways Robin's Like A Banana

_I._

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. This chapter revised.

_

* * *

_

It was January 2nd. Normally, this would mean that wild revelry had taken place and that the Teen Titans were now recovering from it—but today, Robin had called a meeting. It was unusual, Raven thought, and so instead of listening to the annoyed cries of her various emotions, she decided to go. She descended the staircase, fell up, cursed, got to the ops room five minutes late, and finally got into the door.

Everyone else was already there. Robin looked up and nodded at her. "You're late," he said.

"Is that the exact tone that Batman used?" she snarked.

"Yes," he said, not laughing. Raven grumbled. "Figures."

"All right," Cyborg said. "What's goin' on?"

"Well, it's Sla…" Robin shook himself. "I mean, the city's asked us to participate in an education awareness activity for the Jump City Fine Arts School, and take one class there each, starting tomorrow. I know it's short notice, and we're still recovering from the New Year's party, but it's just six weeks, three days a week. They'll advertise all over the place, and apparently we're cool enough that people will want to take classes there too. He handed catalogs to everyone. "Here's the course selection for this semester."

"What kind of a selection is _this_?" asked Cyborg. "Art courses? Sculpture? Writing? There's not a single mechanical thing there!"

"That would be why it's called Jump City Fine Arts," Raven said.

"Auto maintenance is a fine art," Cyborg shot back. Raven rolled her eyes. There were a few minutes of silence as the Titans looked through the booklets.

"I will choose this one," Starfire said. "_Still Life: Cornucopia of Nature._" She gave the booklet back, reading it aloud.

"Students will be able to depict formulations of landscapes, flora, and still life effectively, efficiently, skillfully, artistically, sublimely, majestically, aesthetically…"

"Got it, Star," Robin said hastily, taking the booklet from her. She clapped her hands together.

"The adverbs are most appealing to me," she said. "May I be excused? Silkie is in need of food."

"Sure," Robin said. Starfire left. Next, Cyborg stood and handed his booklet to Robin.

"I'll try 'Mural Painting: The King's Art,' whatever that means," he said.

Robin snickered. "Nice class description. 'What a glorious morning to be alive, prospective students! In my class you'll learn all about the royal art of…'"

"I thought you liked people who overused the word 'glorious'," Raven said. Robin was caught a little flat-footed, blushing. Cyborg gave an appreciative glance to Raven, who shrugged.

Beast Boy was flipping through pages and getting increasingly overwhelmed. "This is the worst! I don't know how to do any of these things!"

"What exactly do you know how to do?" Raven said.

"Lots of stuff!" Beast Boy said. "I can dish out a wide array of gourmet tofu products, I can pick up all…" Raven tuned him out and perused the pages of her catalog. She was, at least by stereotype, seemingly the most artsy of the Titans, but she didn't exactly want to take up crochet, or dance, or anything else, for that matter. Unfortunately, this was just part of the duties of an official superhero team—the public relations.

Beast Boy yelped, drawing her attention again. "I got it!" he said, holding up his listing and pointing to "Animal Art: Level II."

"Students will be able to intelligently represent animal anatomy, convincingly draw real-world and mythological animals, including…" He read a long list of animals. "Now _that's_ a class!" he said. "Mark me down for that one."

"Narcissist," Raven muttered. Well, time to bite the bullet. Everyone else had. "I suppose I'll take this one. _Focus in Writing Nonfiction_."

She handed her catalog back to Robin.

"Interesting," he said. "Students will be able to learn about focus in writing and expand clarity of expression to facilitate clear communication…" He broke off.

"This description doesn't really facilitate clear communication for me," he said. "Anyway… Clear communication with ideas, comparisons, and words to maximize brevity…"

He shook his head. Raven looked at Robin's catalog.

"You've picked three. _Forgery and Relative Superlative Recognition, Technical Paper Comprehension_, and _The Art of Disguise_," she said.

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "I thought they were interesting. You sure about that writing class? It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me."

"It'll be fine," said Raven.

"Okay," he said, circling the class. "I don't suppose it could hurt."

_

* * *

January 3__rd__._

"So, actually… this hurts," Raven said. _Said? Well, whined,_ she privately admitted. "I don't _do_ long-term projects."

"Can't handle a community college writing class?" Robin said, smirking in that way that truly invited a telekinetic slapping. "What do you do all that reading for, anyway?"

Raven admitted that she had it easier than the other Titans. At least this was an Internet class and she didn't have to leave the Tower almost every day like the other Titans. And they had long-term projects, too.

Robin was in a ludicrous costume consisting of a bowler hat, a striped shirt, and pants that were a bright banana yellow. In fact, on closer inspection, they were covered in drawings of bananas.

Still, at least the color scheme was better than what she usually had to put up with. He was admiring himself in the mirror, and apparently wasn't even being blinded. Cyborg was the only other person in the Tower at the moment, and he was on the fourth floor painting the walls for his class.

Groaning, Raven read the assignment description.

"Students will write a comparative list of one hundred items, analyzing the shared characteristics of two seemingly unrelated persons, places, or things. Brief descriptions of each similarity are required. Note that points will be taken off if the objects are readily found to be similar. This project is worth…"

She blinked.

"Azar's bazaars. I'm going to _kill_ something."

Robin looked up at her. The last few words had been said much louder than the rest of the description.

He smiled. She frowned.

"Go away," she said calmly. He turned back to his disguise. She turned back to her project.

"Two hundred points," she mumbled. "Well, put a dunce cap on me and call me Touchstone."

She regretted saying this as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Robin's hearing was unbelievably acute for a human, and he happened to have a dunce cap sitting right in front of him.

"If you say so," he said. Raven inwardly cursed. He _had_ heard it. Robin got up holding the dunce cap. She quickly grabbed it away from him in a black energy grip and tossed it out the window telekinetically.

Robin looked up at her reproachfully. "Give it back," he said.

"Fine. Don't try that again," she replied.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. Raven tossed the cap back to him and thought about more important matters.

Well, what would she pick as her subject for her 'comparative list'? She looked around for any two random things. Her eye fell on Robin again-how could it not, with his current attire? All right, fine. She looked at his banana-covered pants and smirked.

"One hundred ways Robin is like a banana," she said aloud. Robin looked at her curiously.

"What?" he asked.

"My assignment," she said. "That's what I'll write about."

He gave her a pitying look and turned away.

_

* * *

January 9__th__._

Six days later, Raven had finally gotten over her procrastinating tendencies and gone to the darkened, rarely-used computer lab in the Tower. A few high-tech but dust-covered computers stood at odd angles. It was late and no one else seemed to be around.

_One Hundred Ways Robin's like a Banana_

_January 9, 2006_

_by Raven_

It was a start.

She sighed and shifted in her chair. She took her hands off the keyboard. Then she put them on again. She twirled around in the spinning chair.

What could possibly come to mind as similarities between _Robin _and a _banana_? She seemed to have compounded her troubles with bad ideas.

Actually, a few things, at least, came to mind immediately. She typed them in.

_1. They're both colored yellow. _

"Analysis," she murmured. "Hm…"

_Quite simple. Robin's costume has yellow segments and a banana is yellow all over. _

_2. This makes them both fruity._

_Though even without it, they're clearly both fruits. The banana is, obviously, a fruit. As for Robin—ever seen the shorts he _used _to wear? It was even worse than his current outfit. Given all of that, I rest my case. And if you knew his real name…_

_3. Neither one seems entirely straight._

_Well, bananas have that little curve tendency. Robin, on the other hand… see points one and two. At least it's a possibility that can't be ruled out. Though…_

_4. They're both rather mushy._

_Again, this is not quite literal, as a banana is physically mushy and squishy. Robin, on the other hand, is simply obnoxiously obsequious to Starfire. I swear on Azar's corpse, he babies the girl. "Star-fyarrrrr!" He never shouts like that about any of the other team members. Then again…_

_5. Apparently, nothing like them has ever been seen on Tamaran._

_Because Starfire gobbles up anything yellow—ever seen her drink mustard? She also likes bananas quite a lot, and says there's nothing quite like them on Tamaran. Judging by the starry-eyed frequency with which she eyes Bird Boy over there, there's nothing quite like him on Tamaran either. Too bad points two and three might make her out of luck._

Raven stopped. That would have to do for now. Hopefully the teacher wouldn't take the assignment too seriously. Otherwise it could be problematic. She stood up and left.

_

* * *

January 10__th__._

The next morning, Raven walked down to breakfast, her mind on the project. She looked at her watch and found she was about three minutes early; usually, she came in at the point in the Tower's routine where either Cyborg or Beast Boy dared each other to do something obscenely biological.

However, today wasn't exactly normal. For one thing, Robin was in the kitchen as well, having a tussle with the other two.

"Boys," she muttered, and stepped over the writhing pile of bodies.

"Aw, come on in, Raven, the water's great!" shouted Beast Boy from underneath Cyborg.

Raven shuddered.

"Sure that's water?" she asked. "Or did one of you get a little _too_ excited?"

Robin's head popped out of the pile.

"Um, Raven, eww. The views and opinions expressed just now are strictly those of Beast Boy. The contents have not been reviewed or approved by me or Cyborg."

"I see you're putting that Technical Paper Comprehension class to good use," Raven muttered.

"Oh yeah, it's great," Robin said. Cyborg's hand reached out and pummeled his head into the ground.

A muffled "oww" came from underneath. Raven rolled her eyes and made herself herbal tea.

She addressed the still-fighting male Titans. "You know, I find it funny how they call technical paper comprehension a 'fine art.'"

Robin popped up again. "Yeah, I," he started, and then was dragged down again.

Raven shook her head silently and drank her tea. Today looked like a good day for outdoor meditation. Then she'd work on her project again. Six weeks, thirty working days… she only needed to come up with three or four a day.

* * *

Raven slid into her chair. She'd decided to just take one of the computers from the lab into her room to make things easier on her—specifically just in case Beast Boy decided to read her stuff. The computer was … surprisingly fun to use, especially the Internet. She was already getting spam mail on her email account, though.

Raven logged on to check her email quickly for her teacher's latest message. Ooh, three new messages.

* * *

From: LCD Giveaway

To: Raven

Subject: , claim your brand spanking new Jump-shiba LCD TV

Please attend this matter as soon as you can!

* * *

Raven read no further and deleted it.

"I've had this account for _two days_," she muttered. "How can I already be getting spam?"

She opened up the next message.

* * *

From: TitansFans Admin

To: Raven

Subject: Activation – Titanfans

Welcome to the most rapidly-growing site on the Internet about the Teen Titans, Titansfans! We hope you'll enjoy your stay on our discussion boards, **Raven**. To activate your account, press this link now.

Thanks,

The Admins

* * *

Raven faintly smiled. She was probably going to have a lark descending among the team's admirers in this Titansfans website or whatever. At the very least, she could correct some annoying misperceptions.

The third email was the lesson from the Fine Arts school, and she opened it up and decided to deal with the rest of the stuff later.

* * *

A bit later, Raven opened up her comparison list.

"All right," she said, and cast her mind back to that day.

She typed:

_6. If you push them into the ground, they come up. Eventually._

_Eventually, bananas, which are fruits, after all (see point two), when planted into the ground, will come up into, I don't know, banana trees. Robin on the other hand… Cyborg plants _him_ into the ground whenever they're training together. Robin usually gets off more hits, but every time Cyborg connects, ouch. Robin goes flying into the ground. But he comes up. Eventually._

_7. Monkeys seem to like them._

_Well, Beast Boy can transform into monkeys, and usually he likes Robin, except when Robin does something stupid, or more likely, when _Beast Boy_ does something stupid. Monkeys, classically speaking, also like bananas. This is, I think, common knowledge._

_8. They're rather slippery._

_Banana peels have been made famous for their slippery status. You step on one, next thing you know, you're flat on your back like Starfir…_

"Well, that's not fair," Raven said. She deleted it.

_You step on one, next thing you know, you're flat on your back like a Las Vegas h…_

She sighed and deleted it again.

_Step on them and you'll slip. Robin's slippery qualities are rather different. He's elusive, shadowy, and generally unpleasant to think about at night._

(She briefly considered putting "in the shower" but decided against it.)

_And he can get out of any headlock, grasp, rope, bonds, or similar things. It's a useful talent for a superhero. _

_9. They both (reputedly) have long shafts. _

Raven considered the propriety of this remark and decided that it would have to do. With ninety-one more things to do, she could hardly back out now.

_The entire surface of a banana can be considered its shaft. This shaft comprises anywhere from eight to twelve inches, perhaps; I've never checked exact statistics. From what I've heard from the Jump City grapevine, this measurement holds true for Robin; however, I haven't actually verified this myself, so this information is disputable._

_I of course refer to his non-extended bo staff's shaft._

_10. You can peel off both of their 'skins.'_

_Well, Robin's skin isn't exactly pliable, but nevertheless it can be peeled if you put enough effort into it (this, of course, holds true for most humans, humanoids, or animals). Trust me, I've tried… he doesn't make it easy but it works nevertheless. A banana's skin is its peel, in this case. And yes, you can peel off the banana peel._

Raven nodded and saved. That would do for the moment. She got up and left the room.


	2. 11 to 16

_II._

Disclaimer: I don't even own 100 bananas.

Thanks to my reviewers.

* * *

_January 11__th__. _

"…and so Raven," Beast Boy said, flipping the blackboard over for a sixth time, "brought a _computer_ into her room. What does _Raven_ need with a computer in her room?"

"No idea," said Cyborg. The two were holding a council of war in Beast Boy's Secret Closet Lair. It was dusty and uncomfortable, but Beast Boy had initiated the old Secret Agent Protocols.

"How do you get that blackboard to work?" Cyborg asked. "You should only be able to flip it over once before you get back to the same image."

Beast Boy brushed aside the magic blackboard and continued.

"So I say we initiate Investigation Rwanda, Cyborg."

"_Rwanda?_ We're already at Wattlebird or something crazy. And I had no clue you knew geography at all," said Cyborg.

"…standing for Raven's Weird Acquisition of New Data Arranger."

"You know the word _acquisition?_"

"We will aggressively seek out the _truth._ _The truth is out there, Cy._"

Cyborg yawned. "All right, BB, we'll look into it. I've got class tomorrow. I'm off to bed now. We'll start tomorrow night."

* * *

"Absolutely not," Robin said, scowling. "It's patrolling time."

Raven had awoken distressed; it had taken her the whole morning to calm down and now, Robin was summoning her to go on her sweep of the city.

"Robin, you don't understand," said Raven.

"Absolutely not."

"Well, I'm glad we're agreed on that," she muttered.

"It's patrolling time," he said, and stomped away. Raven glared after him.

"Jerk," she muttered. "_No, you can't write your paper, absolutely not. It's patrolling time."_

She swept her cloak back and flew out the door, thinking black thoughts about Robin.

* * *

When Raven got back, she immediately phased into her room and started typing.

_11. They can be rather rotten sometimes. _

_Today, for example, I had to meditate all morning long so as to stop the end of the world from coming about. Presumably Robin doesn't want _that_. But nooo, "absolutely not, it's patrol time," and so now it's six and I'm tired and dirty. He's the one who insisted I do all of this stuff. What a mindless goon. On the banana hand, well, leave one out too long and you'll see how rather rotten they get._

_12. Sometimes I want to slice them into a million pieces. _

_Sliced bananas aren't usually my cup of tea (that's usually some obnoxious tofu mixture with my herbal tea.) Still, sometimes I get the urge to chop up a banana and eat it, and why not? It's not particularly unhealthy, and even if it were, well, that's one of the few perks to being what I am. On the Robin end of this, just see above for why I might want to slice _him_ into a million pieces. Some leader. Cretinous scumbag. _

_13. Did I mention they're bright and fruity? _

_This bears repeating. A banana is very fruity. This is by nature of being a fruit. Robin, by Azar, is he fruity. At least he took the hint about wearing some pants. Not everyone wants to see those legs, you know. _

"Though maybe I shouldn't talk about not wearing pants," she admitted to herself.

Those enraged entries had taken some of the torrential hatred away. Maybe this project could be useful. If not entirely suitable for public viewing.

* * *

Beast Boy took the controller with him upstairs.

"Mission accomplished, Commander X," he whispered. "Is this channel safe?"

"Absolutely," said Cyborg. "I've debugged it thoroughly, Agent Y. Full report in code just in case."

"Y's operation of the Dark Caricature has successfully caused Teletubby to return to the Chaos Sanctuary," Beast Boy said.

"Excellent, Agent Y," said Cyborg. "Transfer the Gimmick Viewers into the Chaos Sanctuary and report back to the Pandemonium Fortress."

* * *

_It's a good thing, _Beast Boy reflected, _ants can lift so many times their weight. _

He struggled with the camera into the crack under Raven's door, and wondered how on Earth he would get it up the wall into the place where Cyborg's laser headset was telling him he had to put it.

He tapped out a message in Morse code on his microphone and listened carefully; a response came back to him.

_T…r…y… h…a…r…d…e…r. _

Beast Boy scowled as best as an ant could and climbed up the wall laboriously. Step by step he was sure it was going to collapse and squash him, and his cover would be utterly blown. And if the camera didn't kill him, Raven _certainly_ would.

No, wait, she wouldn't. He'd be roasted over a fire and fed to Cyborg. He felt his knees buckle and his will sap.

_Do something!_ he furiously tapped onto his communicator.

_O…k…a…y,_ Beast Boy heard. _Our father who art in heaven…_

_ Something more productive! _Beast Boy tapped back.

Unexpectedly, the power suddenly died. Raven gasped. Beast Boy seized his opportunity and climbed up, his vigor renewed. The laser pointer had gone out but he'd been staring at the right spot to mount the camera, and carefully applied glue.

Then, he panicked. Raven was lighting candles in her room. Just to his left, he saw one of the fatal, evil candelabras.

_What's a candelabra?_ Beast Boy tapped.

_Beats me_, Cyborg replied.

Beast Boy turned his (admittedly limited) attention back to Raven. He scrambled down from the wall; even in the dim light of the candle, Raven would notice him if she came that close. Green ants tended to stick out from the crowd. And there wasn't even a crowd of ants to stick out of.

Luckily, he suspected Raven was used to things crawling around her room, so if he could just get out of the light… there! Now he'd be just another figure in the darkness, and…

Something in front of him growled.

Beast Boy gulped.

_Cy, _he tapped. _I've got a bad feeling about this._

* * *

Raven frowned.

"Cyborg," she called, flipping open her communicator. But then, she realized that was unpowered as well. She flipped on the battery.

"…Raven and Beast Boy?" Robin was demanding. Starfire and Cyborg were already hooked up on the battery network. "Oh, wait, there you are, Raven. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, wondering why he was suddenly solicitous after his 'go patrol' stance. _Talk about your mood swings._

"You know where BB is?" asked Robin.

"No," said Raven. Cyborg seemed to breathe out.

"Well," he said, "I'm sure he'll turn up."

"Right," said Raven. "Could you _fix_ this, Cyborg?"

"I'm down by the power lines," Robin said.

"You're _what?_" Cyborg asked. There was a commotion on his end of the network.

"Friend Robin and I are investigating," said Starfire.

"Hold on, don't touch a thing! Not in _my _Tower!" yelled Cyborg. Raven rolled her eyes.

"Call my comm when it's fixed," she said, and closed it. Well, looked like she'd have some time to read books the old-fashioned way.

* * *

Cyborg dashed down to the power generators, hoping against hope that they wouldn't recognize the signs of his sabotage. He'd planned to cut it by remote and then fix the place up later, but Robin and Starfire had beaten him to the punch.

Arriving, he skidded to a halt. Robin was standing well back, but he had that stupid analyzer from his utility belt out.

"Cyborg," he called. "Looks like someone did this deliberately. Remote-control activated guillotine blade."

"A most vicious trick," said Starfire.

"Uh, yeah," Cyborg said. He picked up the end of the wire. "Cleanly cut, by someone who knew what wire to cut."

"It won't need much to fix it, right?" asked Robin.

"Nah, man. You and Star can go back; you better find BB. Knowing him, he probably saw a flash from a broken conduit and liked the shininess and touched it."

"I do not think Beast Boy would do such a thing," Starfire said. "Though I understand a compulsion for the shiny things is a common feature of infants?"

"We can talk about childhood developmental psychology later, Star," said Robin. "All right, let's go."

He and Starfire disappeared up the stairs. Cyborg sighed with relief and set about quickly repairing the wires. Wherever Agent Y was, he'd have to fend for himself until he had the power repaired.

Suddenly, he heard a tapping. His microprocessor immediately translated it.

_Cy, I've got a bad feeling about this._

Cyborg stared down and quickly replied _About what?_

_There's a giant spider in front of me,_ Beast Boy said.

Cyborg was sure that if Morse code could show emotion, there would be several more exclamation points.

_Beautiful pose he's got, though, _Beast Boy tapped out.

_Pose? What're you _talking_ about, man? _Cyborg asked.

_That Animal Art class has been getting to me._

_How do you have _time_ to tap all this out?_

_How do __**you**__? _Beast Boy retorted.

_**I**__ have a multi-petahertz microprocessor._

_Oh. Well. The spider is being nice. I guess it must recognize Beast Boy, Friend of All Things Living..._

Cyborg groaned. "I was almost worried about you, too," he typed in. "Report back to the Pandemonium Fortress when you finish."

* * *

The power in Raven's room snapped back on, and Raven was very glad that she'd saved before anything terrible could happen to her data. She didn't particularly feel like typing at the moment, though, so she left her room to check on the other Titans.

Robin and Starfire were the only ones in the ops room when she arrived.

"Where's Cyborg and Beast Boy?" she asked.

"I think Cyborg's still fixing the power," Robin said.

The two other male Titans walked in, looking somewhat rumpled and worse for wear.

"Cyborg, Beast Boy! You are unharmed!" said Starfire.

"Yeah, I just had a ruin with one of my more adoring fans," said Beast Boy.

"He met a spider," Cyborg said. "And then... disgusting things."

Raven blanched. "You don't mean…"

Cyborg paled. "_No! _Just insect-disgusting, not… not _that_."

"'That'? Please, what is 'that'?" asked Starfire.

"Um… nothing, if it's what I think it is," said Robin.

Beast Boy mightily waved away the comments, saying, "Dudes, you are _disgusting_."

"Anyway," said Raven. "Any idea what caused the power outage?"

"No," the others chorused.

"Just that somebody did it on purpose," Robin said.

"And it was _one of us?_ No way, dude!" said Beast Boy.

Cyborg felt a sweat drop forming.

"Not necessarily, Beast Boy," Robin said. "I think someone with a remote control did it, since they didn't clean up after they did the job."

"Yeah," said Cyborg. "Yeah, I'll bet that's _exactly_ what it is."

He laughed nervously. No one else noticed.

"Well, as long as it's back up," Raven said, and left the room.

* * *

Raven checked her email again. She deleted the various junk (" , you could get one of thousands of scholarships today!").

Oh, wait, here was a message.

From: Megatherium

To: Raven

Subject: ya rite

hey u $&^! (apparently Jumpmail censored words, Raven thought amusedly) i bet u dont no a thing abuot the titans so y dont u go $&^! yourself and $&#! a #$%! with a reeely big cabage you !&$

raven wuld so totally want to go out wtih muirehtagem hes everything he would want so my stroy makes prfect sense, its _**U**_ who dont make sense

Raven almost smiled. Megatherium had posted a story on Titansfans about her—_her—_falling in love with some guy suspiciously called "Muirehtagem." _If you're going to name a character after yourself,_ she thought, _you might as well not reverse it_.

She had disgustedly replied that just because she was reputedly dark, brooding, and sarcastic, she wouldn't therefore fall for someone who was, paradoxically enough, arrogant, exuberant, and generally overconfident. Also, this 'Muirehtagem' seemed to be _far_ too powerful. He had sixteen swords and could use them all at once.

Megatherium had not taken kindly to this, apparently. Raven idly wondered what the censored words were. Her vernacular knowledge, while filled with phrases that were frankly the bee's knees, was a little out of date. She dashed off a reply:

From: Raven

To: Megatherium

Bcc: TitansFans Admin

Subject: Re: ya rite

Megatherium,

I have no objections to your writing—except, of course, that it sucks. I daresay I know _just _a smidgen more about how Raven would react to this Megath, er, _Muirehtagem _character. Now, in the interests of your continued—or just restarted after the tenth failure—education, I pointed out the unlikelihood of Raven suddenly falling in love with a brooding, prideful 'dark hero' (here). Unfortunately, I suppose your education on writing will have to wait until you're done with potty-training.

Lord knows Beast Boy has work to do in that regard.

Raven

Raven rolled her eyes and sent the message. She glanced out the window. It was…

Uh-oh. She mentally waited for the eruption that was sure to occur momenta…

"Snowing! _Snowing snow! Like, real snow, dude!_" Beast Boy shouted.

It carried through the whole Tower. Raven thought she saw a few small objects shake on the table. She heard Robin's earthquake warning system go off with an annoying ring and a prerecorded message of "Earthquake, 4.2 on the Richter scale."

Raven glanced outside the window again and had to fight to hold back her laughter. A curse floated past her window and she burst out laughing.

When she recovered, she looked outside again and nearly laughed again. More assorted curses drifted up to her, and she dashed to the computer, opening up her comparison list:

_14. Occasionally, they fall out of trees._

_Robin was in a tree just now. Beast Boy shouted "it's snowing"—which it was—and a localized earthquake formed from the shouting; Robin's got his utility belt wirelessly connected to his alarm systems. That guy _loves_ his gadgets. Anyway, he tried to twist into his "Titans, go" position as soon as he heard the earthquake. Unfortunately, see sentence one of this description._

_The "Titans, go" pose doesn't work too well twenty feet up in a tree. He fell off and probably would've broken his back if he hadn't swung one of his grappling hooks up. Instead, he just rammed through sixty or so branches, scratching him up the whole way. He cursed like a sailor. I'll probably have to heal him, too. _

_Bananas are a fruit. I hear that, in "the real word", they sometimes fall down (see the encyclopedia article for Apple, Isaac Newton, etc.)_

_15. Robin does the splits. Bananas become banana splits._

_So after Robin's ill-fated tree experience, he kept swinging on that hook. It was only attached to one of those upper branches, the weak kind. I was laughing at him falling off the tree and evidently my powers flared up and snapped most of those upper branches. As he swung around the tree, the one his hook was attached to snapped. So he fell in the middle of his flashy acrobatics._

_ Robin never knew what hit him. He's still cursing at present._

She considered, then added one more.

_16. They both belong in citrus groves. At least with that color scheme._

_See numbers one, two, three, and thirteen for further elaboration. Bananas naturally occur in citrus groves. So do things with the coloration of Robin. The only thing dark about him is his hair, and the amount of gel he uses makes me suspect he's trying to go for permanent chemical discoloration._

_After all, you can't go wrong with a fashion statement like mine._

Raven saved it and teleported out to the tree.

As she'd seen from the window, Robin was prone, cursing weakly. But up close, he really did look bad, and any mirth in her was suddenly quelled. She knelt next to him.

"Robin," she said. "Are you all rig…"

"_I saw that energy!_" he shouted, suddenly springing up despite all the little cuts on his face. But he was grinning, at least. Raven felt herself thrown into the ground and winced. Her cloak was going to need cleaning.

"Think you're the cat's pajamas, huh? I'm about to make you scram your patootie-" Robin was saying in his best mob boss accent. (It was terrible, Raven thought.)

"Patooty schmabooty!" shouted Beast Boy from behind her. Vaguely Raven saw a snowball hit Robin right in the hair gel. Robin whipped up and threw a disk from his utility belt at Beast Boy.

"Whoa, dude! I…" Beast Boy didn't get to finish his sentence; Raven heard the freezing disk activate. While Robin was distracted, though, she'd gathered her powers and…

_Whack._

She pummeled him all over, gathering all the falling snow and slamming it straight towards Robin. He raised his hands in a futile gesture to block it away, but soon he was buried under a mound of snow.

"How do you like them apples?" Raven said to the mound. _Or bananas, maybe,_ she thought.

"Say you're sorry and I'll let you go," she continued.

Suddenly, there was an explosion behind Raven. She turned, and in that instant knew it had been a fatal mistake. Before she could try anything else, Robin was already leaping at her, his bo staff warding off the snow still chasing him. He landed right on top of her, and they tumbled to the ground.

There was a moment of stillness.

An odd feeling hovered in the air; she felt as if she could hear the snow quietly patting off the branches and into piles around her, as she stared into his brooding, dark eyes-

_Wait, those phrases are from Megatherium's stupid story, _Raven thought disconnectedly.

She heard his breath, his heartbeat, even the snow falling off of him.

_Lucky, _she thought again, _Beast Boy's frozen and has a terrible view of what's going on…otherwise I'd never hear the end of it._

What was he doing?

Getting off, apparently.

Er, getting off _of her_, that was to say. Raven breathed again, shook her head and the blurring faded, and she saw he was dashing off. Belatedly, she realized the alarm had rung.

"Titans, pose!" Robin shouted. Cyborg and Starfire burst out of the Tower. Raven got up and flew over, ripping Beast Boy's ice prison away as she flew past.

The Titans posed dramatically and sped off.

* * *

"I'll prove it to her," Control Freak growled. "Oh, I'll prove it."

He took the statue of the warrior and pressed a few buttons on his remote, grumbling anxiously. It never crossed his mind how Stockholm Syndrome-y he was being; instead, he powered up the statue and sat in his favorite couch position—number 64—waiting for results to come.


	3. 17 to 22

_III._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and perhaps that's for the best. I should mention that more than just the style of this piece is, let's say, inspired by a classic (so to speak) Robin and Raven fic, Childhood Games (www. fanfiction .net/s/1830053/1/Childhood_Games). I should probably have tried to avoid directly borrowing so many plot elements, and even a few jokes, but there you have it, I did it, I can't undo it now.

Thanks again to my reviewers for giving this crazy story your time. Hopefully, you'll continue to enjoy it and forgive some of the more childish elements. I appreciate all the feedback. And don't worry; the piece is basically finished, there's no danger that I won't get to 100.

* * *

Downtown, various shower curtains and life-sized Warp Trek action figures were terrorizing the populace. Raven grimaced.

"Control Freak again, huh," she commented.

"Looks like it," Robin said.

"Whatever it is, it's goin' down!" shouted Cyborg (rather predictably, Raven thought.)

The Titans fanned out into formation, but as they did another figure burst out of an alley nearby. Spinning some swords smoothly, it sliced up the various enemies and stopped in front of the bewildered Titans.

"Uh, dude. What just happened?" asked Beast Boy.

Raven had a sinking feeling. Surely she was mad, insane.

"I am Muirehtagem," said the figure. "I've come to offer my assistance."

_Oh, yeah,_ Raven thought. _I'm crazy._

* * *

Control Freak watched calmly. For him.

Actually, his palms were sweating, he was hyperventilating, and he was gobbling down popcorn faster than the _Exitprise_ at transwarp. The camera view of his Muirehtagem robot gave him an excellent viewpoint on the action, and it was a lot scarier knowing that it was real.

It was a brilliant scheme of his, this; too bad it was just to prove to some unbeliever on Titansfans that he was a genius. Naturally he didn't believe that this unbeliever was really Raven.

In fact, it was probably just some freaky weirdo with too much time on their hands, too much knowledge of TV shows, and way too much technology for their own good.

But still, he'd show her. Raven would fall in love with his hero.

* * *

Raven stared at Muirehtagem. Yes, he fit the description she'd read online. Was this her powers manifesting in entirely the wrong place? She pushed the thought aside; she'd never had any talent for prophecy. Not to mention if she _did_, she was sure her mental blocks would not allow something so utterly retarded to get through.

Her lip curled in disgust.

"…not really interested," Robin was saying. "There's places that need more coverage than Jump City, you'd be best off trying there, um, Mweertagen."

"I insist," Muirehtagem said.

("Any second now, she'll run over to him and defend him," Control Freak said to himself. "I'm just that good.")

"But thank you for your interest," Starfire said.

"We can't just allow the guys off the street to join us, even if they are really good," said Cyborg.

"Yeah. We run thorough ID checks and usually get someone from the JLA to vouch for the candidate," Robin said. "Well, we do _now_."

"Dude, let's not talk about that," Beast Boy said.

* * *

If he had been a more dramatic villain, Control Freak would've smashed something into shrapnel. Unfortunately, he didn't have the strength; he idolized Khan Noonien Singh but he could hardly emulate him.

Nevertheless, he lay back a bit more threateningly; his gaze became just a tad more obstinate.

"I am _never_ wrong," Control Freak said. He slammed a button down on his remote.

* * *

"If the la…" Muirehtagem began. Then, Robin, Cyborg, and he all stiffened.

"Wireless transmitter straight towards our pal here," Cyborg shouted.

"Titans, ready!" called Robin. Muirehtagem sputtered. Then his eyes mechanized.

"I am _never_ wrong," he said in a whiny voice they all recognized.

"Oh, _no_," groaned Raven. "Don't tell me Megatherium is _Control Freak._"

"One and the same… wait a second. You _are_ Raven?" shouted Muirehtagem_, _followed by some guttural consonant-filled sounds, including a "kh", a "f", and a "bl".

"Friends, my grasp of English is failing me," Starfire said.

"It's a Cling-onese expletive," said Raven and Beast Boy simultaneously.

The other Titans looked at them oddly. Beast Boy was staring at Raven with undisguised wonder.

"Look, I read books, okay?" Raven said.

"This is why you would be the perfect mate for m-Mega-Muirehtagem!" said Muirehtagem. "But now you will die!"

"How are we supposed to take this seriously?" muttered Raven.

The robot raised his swords and spun them around, dashing at Raven. She threw up a shield of black energy instantly and Starfire launched a flurry of starbolts knocking a few swords away from the machine warrior. Waves of sonic blasts, various black-glowing objects, freeze disks, and something indescribably nasty on Beast Boy's part all wore at the robot, unable to move under the barrage.

(Actually, it was basically unable to move anyway; Control Freak's programming had not taken into account adaptation. Such was the mind of an obsessed fanboy.)

"Noo!" screamed Control Freak.

"Why exactly were you writing stories about _me_, Control Freak?" asked Raven. "That's _very_ disturbing."

"I… I… was experimenting with mind-altering drugs," Control Freak muttered.

"That's hardly an adequate explanation. How can something that doesn't _exist_ be altered?" asked Raven.

"Wow," Beast Boy murmured. "It's weird hearing her say that to someone else."

"I believe such drugs cause slight hormonal imbalances as well, friend Raven," said Starfire.

Raven cast an odd look at her. "You know this because…"

Starfire whispered something in Raven's ear. Raven, inexplicably, grinned. Kind of. Her lips moved.

"Silly Tamaraneans," she said.

The male Titans stared and backed away slowly.

"What's going on with Raven's mouth?" said Beast Boy. "Anyone see anything possess her?"

At this, her expression turned cold again. Colder than before, really. Beast Boy was always saying things like that, so she should be used to it by now; but she wasn't, not really. It was... irritating how he, whose mental capacity had once had to fit within the confines of a single-celled organism, could get under her defenses.

"Only a perfectly reasonable desire to hit you," she said. She must have said it a little bitterly, because Robin and Cyborg both looked at her strangely.

* * *

_17. Both seem to live off of sunlight and water alone._

_Bananas, in fact, do basically live off of sunlight and water. That's how trees work. _(She inserted a three-page essay detailing the basics of photosynthesis, glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, the structure of a plant cell, and so on. Just to make them pay.)

_Robin, on the other hand; I've only ever seen him eat when people _make _him eat. He's indulged in pizza, but it might be just to keep up appearances with other males. (Not that he's closeted or anything; see various earlier points for how he is in fact the opposite of closeted.) Robin's definitely picked up a lot from Batman._

_18. They've appeared in cartoons._

_Robin, of course, has starred in various media depictions, partly as a hero but also in certain underground publications, which I of course do not have a collection of,__ as the unfortunate, er, target of Batman. (But judging by that costume, it's consensual.) Not that I believe the rumors or anything. _

_Bananas appear in cartoons probably in their natural form, but _certainly_ in the form of the banana peel that causes people to slip. _

_19. They've also appeared on the news._

_The banana, and general tropical fruit, shortage in Jump City everyone knows about; hurricanes in Florida and all of that have made shipments here decidedly difficult. And everyone knows about this why? Because it's appeared on the news. _

_Robin and the rest of us appear regularly on the news. In case you haven't seen the "Teen Titan Property Damage Counter" on JNN recently, it's something on the order of $1.5 million. Sorry. At least we're promoting your arts classes._

She saved and exited.

* * *

"Interesting," Cyborg said. "Agent Y, report back to the Pandemonium Fortress. There are Gimmick Tricks you need to see."

"Acknowledged, Commander X."

"I'm activating the Dark Caricature to guard the Hershey Interstate. Get up here now."

Beast Boy appeared next to him, and Cyborg flipped on the portable viewscreen.

"Here's the latest tapes," he said. "The zoom quality isn't good and the file isn't readable, but you can see basically what she's doing."

"Going on the _Internet?_ Raven?"

"There's more. You remember all those odd comments about Megatherium and whatnot? Well, I ran the vids through my microprocessor and"—Cyborg embarked on a long string of technobabble—"…Megatherium, which must be the alias of Control Freak!"

"Raven's a _traitor?_" Beast Boy said, gasping.

Cyborg looked at him oddly.

"You didn't understand a word I just said, did you," he said.

"Nope," Beast Boy responded cheerfully.

"She told him off. Big time."

"Oh. Awesome, dude."

"She's writing some kind of paper for her class, too. I haven't yet managed to clear that one up—apparently the big wireless beam Control Freak used to communicate with his Muirehtagem"—(actually Cyborg mangled the word, but Beast Boy couldn't tell, so for the sake of clarity the real name is used here)—"robot screwed wireless tech all over the city. We'll need to rescramble the refraction constant to reset the re…"

Beast Boy's eyes glazed over. "Dude," he said. "I have _no clue _what that means."

"Forget it," Cyborg said, grumbling.

* * *

_January 12__th__. _

The next day, Raven woke up early.

This wasn't because she usually woke up early, nor was it because she'd wanted to. Instead, her communicator had rung. She blinked, shook her head, and picked it up.

"H-hello?" she said.

"Raveaveaveaven," said Robin. His voice was echoing very strangely. "Could you, ah, get me out of here-ere-ere?"

"Where's here?"

"Um… don't laugh-augh-augh."

"Have I ever?"

"Good point-oint-oint. I'm in a trash can on Elm Street-eet-eet."

Raven stared. Robin blushed.

"How…"

"Let's just say the homeless like me a little too much-uch-uch. Come over and get me out. Please-ease-ease."

With an amused sigh, she teleported out of the Tower. When she got to Elm Street, Robin's odd comment made a bit more sense. Various slovenly people were bowing before, dancing around, and sitting on a thrashing trash can. The disheveled people on the trash can were smoking pipes (which smelled like they were filled with opium.)

Raven just rolled her eyes and ripped the trash can apart in a flash of black energy. Robin fell out, grinned sheepishly at her, and swung towards her on a grappling hook. Before she could react, he had grabbed her up.

"Ew," she said with a shudder. "Get _off. _That ooze on your shoulder is the single most repulsive shade of orange I've ever seen, and I've watched Jersey Shore."

"You have?" he said.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Even if I hadn't."

"So you have."

"Remind me not to rescue you from the fearsome brigade of hobos next time."

Once they got back to the Tower, Robin quickly ran for the bathroom, and she couldn't blame him. He _reeked._ But it had given her two new ideas for her paper…

* * *

_20. You can find them in the trash sometimes._

_It appears Robin couldn't sleep last night and finally got up to do some patrolling of Jump City. He brought a snack along with him (maybe he does eat). Amusingly enough, it was a bag of chips and a banana (the old Uncle Vernon 'rations.')_

_Events he didn't want to talk about occurred then. The end result that he lay in the trash, surrounded in unidentifiable grime, muck, and yes, a few banana peels, previously in the trash can._

_21. The homeless like them._

_Directly related to the last one, number twenty; after all, the homeless like Robin, savior of Jump City, and they also like bananas, food in Jump City. A delicacy, really._

_22. They can both be found sometimes in baskets._

_On the way back, he could barely see; this didn't pose a problem as his hearing is very acute and he swung up towards me easily, so we teleported back. However, it did have a side effect when he got back and tumbled into _my _laundry basket. At least it gave me this entry to put in._

_Bananas are ubiquitous in fruit baskets, of course._

She saved and exited again.


	4. 23 to 39

_IV._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

The first section (up to number 25) below should really have been a part of the previous chapter. Oops.

* * *

Later that day, Raven was on her computer, and was finding it more difficult to find similarities—and she only had twenty-two. She needed one hundred. One _hundred._

She sighed. Robin, predictably, was acing his three classes. Cyborg was painting some masterpiece landscape on the sixth-floor living quarters. Beast Boy was assisting him and _not_ terribly messing it up; every time she passed, she saw a beautifully-depicted cow newly added. Starfire had added various depictions of her own to the mural, and all in all, they were becoming quite good at what they were doing.

Raven looked bitterly at her list and sighed.

"At least it can't get any worse," she said.

"Whoa-wah-wee," Robin said, stumbling down the hallway towards her.

_Uh-oh. This is _not_ a good sign,_ she thought. _I think it's about to get worse._

"Hey, Raven. Have you seen the clouds lll...lllre… lately?" he said.

"No…"

"Well, they're reaaal beautiful… just like you Raven…" He erupted into a fit of giggling.

Raven felt a million things rise up in her and ignored them. Instead, she sighed. "What, by Azar's earthshaking b… um, anyway, _what_ are you on?"

"I mean it!" he said, collapsing into a chair. "Shall I compare thee to a sum… summary day? Though Star's more lovely and more temperature…"

He drifted into mindless muttering. Raven reached for his utility belt analyzer and checked him. Sure enough, his blood contained some kind of depressant or opiate—she couldn't really tell. It seemed to have been a result of that incident with the homeless people. She shook her head.

"Robin, when are you going to learn? You're going to be a mean drunk one day," she said.

"Not with you baby, not with you," he murmured.

She sighed and left him alone. Clearly, Robin and drugs just didn't mix. Much like, she realized, bananas and drugs didn't mix. At least, they were surely not the ideal fruit. Raven had heard good things about strawberries.

Hmm. Raven dashed upstairs and typed:

_23. Use both sparingly with drugs._

_Robin behaves oddly under the influence. I hear this is common among full humans. I think this is a left-over effect from that incident with the hobos that I just wrote about, so, no controlled substance laws have been broken here._

"No indeed, none at all, especially not at the New Year's party," she muttered to herself. _Okay. That just sounds like Beast Boy trying to lie_, she thought.

Oh well. It wasn't as if anyone was watching her through a camera on the wall or anything.

_24. __Their insides are soft and squishy. _

_Note that with Robin this is still speculation. I haven't opened him up but if he's actually human, which he no doubt is, he has soft and squishy innards, just like a banana's innards—so to speak—are._

_25. __Oh, and they're fruity and bright. _

_See above elaboration. My personal feeling is that this can't be overemphasized. Despite the charade he puts on._

* * *

_January 18__th__._

Raven vomited. Then, she closed her eyes and spat again. She fell into a heap on the floor, tried to meditate, couldn't form the syllable "Az," and lay there for years, the world spinning like the Flash, on crack, figure skating.

Eventually, she got up. This was against her better judgment, but her better judgment was overruled by her best judgment. Or something crazy like that.

She noticed she had fallen down again and sighed.

"_Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos_," she chanted.

* * *

_Outside…_

Beast Boy was about to take the Hershey Interstate up to the Secret Closet Lair when he heard Raven talking.

"Razzle-rats measurings in this," she slurred. "As her wrath, met trees on synthesis!"

Beast Boy blinked and rushed up the Interstate.

* * *

Well, it wasn't doing anything to further her calmness. But she felt less dizzy now. With a heave and a groan, she got up to her chair and started typing.

_26. Neither drives well._

_Cyborg was right; it's not a good idea to have Robin drive. Oh, what a terrible idea. We were going downtown to stop Cinderblock and Starfire filled the T-Car's trunk and passenger seats with some kind of pulsating creamy larva. _

_Robin and I took his R-Cycle down as a result. He does crazy stuff with that motorcycle, and lucky me, I had to ride behind him. When he did a few 360-degree turns, I couldn't do anything but hold on tight to him and pray. I'm still dizzy. Why didn't I just fly? Waste of energy or not. _

_For reasons that have a great deal to do with their inanimate state, bananas should not be allowed to drive. _

_27. They also can't cook._

"_Oh," Robin says. "Just let me take care of it."_

_Rations my foot. Without the microwave, he's helpless at cooking. Absolutely useless. I could whip up a better waffle than that. _Beast Boy _could, and they'd be made of tofu and still be better._

_28. Though they might _be _cooked._

_Never had cooked banana myself, but I suppose it's practicable, at least. Roasted banana over a slow fire; I'd go for that right now. Of course, I'd go for just about anything in my current state. Most notably some kind of sleeping drug so I can wake up less dizzy._

_29. They both squish nicely when thrown with enough force._

_This, at least, the driving showed me in detail. I could hear the squishing. I could see it happening._

_But I was wrong. He was wearing his belt like a good little boy, and didn't squish. Nevertheless, it's a safe assumption that, with the right velocity (several hundred miles an hour straight towards the ground), Robin would splatter. With a satisfying sound. Satisfying to those of us with grudges._

_Bananas I have experimented on, and yes. Toss it a hundred miles an hour with your telekinetic powers and it will splatter with an equally satisfying sound._

Raven pressed save and staggered off to her bed, hoping for sweet release from the vertigo she was experiencing.

* * *

"No, really," Robin said. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Stay away from motor vehicles for the next…" Raven calculated.

"Sixteen years," she said.

"Raven, I'm just trying to make up for driving like a maniac. I had to beat Cyborg back to the Tower." Robin looked as if he was about to scratch his head in thought, realized he had way too much hair gel on for that, and settled for rubbing his chin.

Just then, Beast Boy could be heard tumbling down the stairs behind him. A giant ball of socks fell after him. Robin sighed.

"Look," he said. "I'll talk to you later about this."

He sped off after the ball of socks. Raven heard explosive disks going off and faintly smiled.

* * *

"So, help me out here. I seriously screwed things up with Raven," Robin said.

Again, he wondered what he was doing asking Beast Boy, of all people. Certainly that situation was familiar to Beast Boy, but he'd never yet found a solution to Raven's anger that didn't involve physical pain.

"I was driving back from the Tower, and Cyborg did that cheesy little I-can-outrun-you thing, so I revved up the R-Cycle and Raven shouted something at me and I thought it was 'Go all-out!' but it was actually 'Slow down!' but I sped up anyways and the whole road got ripped away in the energy she released and then she _glared_ at me like she had four eyes, I mean she's glared at me before but this, this was _weird,_ so now I've gotta go apologize to her, else I wouldn't be much of a leader."

"You know, some people think I talk really fast," Beast Boy said. "Dude, what do I know about Raven?"

"Well, let's see. She's had heart-to-hearts with you…"

"That wasn't really a heart-to-heart," confessed the shapeshifter. "More of a... _tête-à-tête._"

Robin stopped.

"Since when can you speak French?"

"That's _French_?"

Robin bit his lip and continued. "You've helped her against her inner demons…"

"How did you know about that?"

"Cyborg wrote the report."

"Oh."

"You've been hugged by her…"

"Hey! How'd you know abou…"

"Spy cameras in the hallways…"

"Dude, can't a guy get _privacy_ in this tower?"

"No," Robin said. "Privacy is only for girls."

"Well, that's heteronormative," Beast Boy grumbled. "You know, in some species..."

"Anyway," Robin cut him off. "You're probably as close to her as any of us, 'cept maybe Star. Or Cyborg… maybe it's just me. I'm just out of touch with her."

"So ask Star or Cyborg!"

"I don't think Star would be a wise choice," Robin said, thinking about the Kitten incident. "There would be... misinterpretation. And Cyborg isn't going to talk about anything except the T-Car being ruined for the next three to five days."

Beast Boy grudgingly admitted Robin had a point.

"At least hear me out," Robin continued. "You can at least tell me what she absolutely hates, since you've done just about everything that falls under that."

"Tru… er… I'm hurt by your accurations."

"Accusations?"

"Well..." Beast Boy scratched his head. "Eheh, those were accurate accusations, y'know." But then a devious smile crossed Beast Boy's face. "All right. I got it. Reassign all my dish duties for the month to Cyborg and you've got a deal."

"Done," said Robin.

"All right then," said Beast Boy, licking his lips. "Here's what you're gonna need..."

* * *

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Raven opened the door. Robin was holding a bunch of violets and smiling sheepishly.

"So as I was saying before," he said, "uh, I think I drove just a little too fast on the way back and I'd just like to apologize."

Raven grimaced. "A little too fast? You were traveling at relativistic speeds. I think I'm five years younger than I should be."

"Look who's been reading her physics book," he said with a smirk. "Seriously, Raven. I'm sorry."

Raven sighed. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"

"Well"—he handed her the flowers—"I was going to suggest having dinner sometime."

"All right," she said unexpectedly. "Tomorrow night." It would give her a chance, perhaps, to make more comparisons between Robin and a banana. "Oh," she called after him.

"Yeah?"

"You're _not_ driving."

She closed the door and went back to her document, feeling suddenly inspired:

_30. Neither one has superpowers._

_That's Robin's big selling point with the ladies. He's the leader of the Titans, wears a mask, can fight with a staff like nobody's business, has a bunch of gadgets of ridiculous destructive capacity, and yet he has no superpowers; he's just a regular guy._

_ Bananas, obviously, have no superpowers._

_31. But they still prove useful in fights._

…_despite lacking superpowers, Robin has proven useful—more than useful, crucial—on our missions. Hence why he's our leader; I think he could take any one of us if he felt like it. Lots of people have said, after all, that Batman could defeat Superman with twenty minutes of preparation. Like mentor, like student._

_Bananas are surprisingly useful as projectiles for us telekinetically-powered heroes. They splatter, obscuring vision, and the peel causes slipping, as mentioned above. _

_32. They both overcompensate… though that's a bit of verb irregularity._

_That is, one is used to overcompensate, and the other one actually overcompensates. By the way, I should emphasize that this is largely speculation. Or... tinily speculation, if you know what I mean. _

Raven sighed.

"One hundred. You've got to have some riff-raff," she told herself.

_33. Neither one… can smoke tobacco._

_Bananas cannot smoke tobacco for various anatomical reasons. Robin's fitness routine would be rather undermined. I can see him with his shirt off, huffing and puffing, swinging wildly at a punching bag and running short of breath. That's his nightmare._

_34. Neither one is allergic. To, um, chocolate._

_Bananas cannot be allergic, again, for various anatomical reasons. Robin—I've seen him eat chocolate. He devours it with intensity unknown to man. At a guess, therefore, he is not allergic to it, unless he's even more stupid than I could've guessed._

_35. They're rather low in cholesterol, I'd wager._

_Despite his diet, Robin exercises about five hours a day and doesn't break a sweat unless he's sparring with someone. His cholesterol level is logically low as a result. The banana's exact nutrition facts I don't know, but I'd guess that it doesn't have a great deal of cholesterol, being a fruit._

_36. They don't unwind easily._

_Seems to me Robin has difficulty in unwinding, relaxing after… well, anything, actually. Ever. Then again, he is trying to take me out to dinner or whatever. Maybe this is going to be proven false. If so, I will endeavor to keep it true for six weeks at least._

_As for bananas, they don't unwind on their own. I don't even know how you'd unravel a banana, so I'm automatically correct (or incorrect, depending on how you look at it. I look at it my way.)_

_37. Neither one can speak French._

_To the best of my knowledge, no banana has yet been able to speak French or any other language. Robin seems too all-American to know any other language, so French should do._

_38. Robin's weapons have been known to become bananas sometimes._

_Pass. I don't want to talk about that particular experience. Let's just say I was a rabbit and leave it at that. _

_ 39. They end up banging against the floor sometimes._

_If you believe a certain Megatherium's R-rated story, Robin bangs, against the floor, every day at least. Bangs, you know. Hint, hint. As for bananas, well, you can drop them. They fall and bang against the floor. But Robin… bangs THINGS—cough, cough—against the floor._

_If you get what I mean._

She groaned. What was this turning her into, some kind of low-grade stand-up comic? Well, she did have some relaxation to look forward to tomorrow.


	5. 40 to 59

_V._

Disclaimer: I don't own tomorrow night.

* * *

It was tomorrow night.

Actually, it was tonight, but it was tomorrow night in relation to yesterday.

Okay, so it was just the 19th of January, and Raven was mentally babbling to shake off the feeling that this was kind of like a date with Robin. Which it wasn't, he was just being a considerate team leader; odd, considering how he'd brusquely refused to let her off patrol a few days ago.

There was a polite knock on her door, and it opened to reveal Robin, in mask and black tie, smiling pleasantly at her.

"Hey," he said. He raised an eyebrow. Raven was wearing her normal uniform. "Whoa. You didn't need to get so dressed up for me."

"I wasn't aware this was"—_a date_, she managed to avoid saying—"a formal occasion."

"You look nice anyway," he said.

"You look… expensive." She hadn't really thought about this. It might be that some places would object to their patrons dressing in a leotard and cloak. She started mentally running through her belongings. Cloak, cloak, white cloak, mysteriously-pink cloak, cloak she'd sworn never to wear again thanks to Beast Boy, cloak, cloak…

"I'll borrow something from Starfire."

"It's okay," he said. "You always look…" He seemed to be searching for the right word. Raven could imagine it. _Pretty? No. Beautiful? Definitely not. Hot? Hah! ...Unique?_

"…right," he said at last, "the way you are. Perfectly Raven."

Meditating for two extra hours had been a wonderful idea—nothing at all exploded when he said that! Any genuine feeling like that tended to disrupt her concentration—not just Robin—but today, nothing.

"Sweet of you to say," she said, "but the restaurant may disagree."

He shrugged. "How classy of a place do you think I picked?"

"Classy enough to wear that," she said. "Just… wait a second. I'm sure it couldn't take that long."

* * *

She got back to find Robin polishing the black utility belt that blended seamlessly into his tuxedo pants. With a handkerchief that seemed suspiciously bat-shaped.

"Sorry," she said.

"What?" he replied in a hoarse, croaking voice, not looking up from his belt. "Speak up, young lady! These old ears can't hear like they—"

"It was barely an hour."

"Tell that to the driver," he said. "And my expense account. And—" He finally looked up, and stopped talking. A smile spread itself across his face.

"Raven, you look…"

He was silent for a moment, staring. Raven frantically wished she had meditated another hour or so.

"Like a _glorgunk zarkbungler_," he said. Raven was taken aback. Reflexively she rolled her eyes.

"You don't mean that," she said. "Let's go."

"I do mean it," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"Oh, MacAuliffes," he said offhandedly. "Pick up some Big Macs, come back here, watch your favorite TV..." He stopped when he saw her face. "Kidding. The Crown Restaurant. All right?"

He hopped up from the bed and proffered his arm jauntily. "Shall we, m'lady?"

* * *

Raven got up the next morning refreshed, amused, and ready to fill out her list a bit more. She got up and went to the computer, typing:

_ 40. Neither reacts well with excessive caffeine._

_ Bananas just kinda explode. Well, we're talking **very** excessive caffeine. Anyway, bananas and caffeine don't mix._

_ Robin drank a few espressos last night on a dare from me; the ninth one pushed him over the edge on the way back, though he kept himself very stable and even chivalrous during the actual date._

She stopped. It was _not_ a date. She deleted it rapidly.

_…during the actual event. He snapped, really. Lucky…_

_ 41. Neither of them can drive._

_I would die all over again if Robin had driven. A banana might be better. At least it wouldn't swerve as much._

_ 42. If you use them as surfaces, they aren't terribly stable._

_ Things never balance properly on bananas. They always wobble and fall off. This happened with my herbal tea when Beast Boy tried to get me to eat—and I'm not making this up—a tofu banana. As for Robin, he isn't very stable when you put anything on him either. My powers accidentally went off, which tossed my fork on his back—he leapt around and smashed it into atoms. It was actually quite interesting, if unstable._

_ 43. Neither one can draw._

_ Robin just seems to lack the motor skills that would be necessary. Sure, he's agile, but not particularly artistic. He seems like he knows everything that might come in handy in his line of work, but nothing else. Bananas, I can only assume, cannot draw._

_ 44. They never willingly take off their coverings. By which I mean _mask and peel_ and not anything else you might be thinking._

_ Azar's sake, you perverted peripatetic! I don't mean coverings as in his clothes, I'd never ask him for that. Anyway, bananas obviously can't take off their coverings—their peels. Robin doesn't take off his mask. Q.E.D. _

_ 45. Starfire likes them both a lot._

_ Well, I've covered this before, I think. She likes mustard, bananas, and Robin, and many other things._

_ 46. Neither has much fashion sense. Or any, by all appearances._

_ When was the last time you saw a banana in high fashion? They are completely foreign to the concept of fashion sense. Much like Robin. You may have heard somewhere that he dresses like a fruit. I may have mentioned this once or twice, anyway._

Raven gave a slight smile, saved, and left the room, heading downstairs. Robin was flipping the channels on the viewscreen aimlessly.

"I had a… good time last night," she told him.

"Yeah. By stabbing me in the back with eating utensils," he said, scowling darkly.

"Absolutely," she replied.

He grinned. "Well, I'm glad I made amends, then. But did you have to try putting my coffee on the banana?"

"Yeah," Raven said. "You'd had quite enough coffee by that point."

"No, I hadn't drunk the tenth espresso."

"You were becoming incontinent, Robin," she said.

"Don't you worry, my costume comes with built-in diapers."

Raven blinked.

"Also, I had to make sure for my assignment," she said.

"Your assignment."

"Remember? One hundred ways you're like a banana?"

Robin frowned at her. "How many of them consist of 'they're both fruits?'"

"Somewhere on the order of a dozen," she said.

"Figures."

They sat in silence for a moment. Raven got up.

"I'm going to make myself some herbal tea," she said, and went out. To her surprise, Robin was in the kitchen by the time she got down three flights of stairs, up two more, got lost, and teleported to the kitchen.

"Hey, Robin. Did I really take that long?" she asked.

"Go," he said.

"Hm?"

"Go."

"Where?"

"It's patrolling time."

"It's eight in the morning."

"It's patrolling time. Go."

"But…"

"Absolutely not."

"What? Starfire's already on patrol, and…"

"Absolutely not."

"You're crazy, Robin." She shook her head. He could be considerate one second and then all of a sudden clam up like a robot.

"Do you have a problem?"

"Yes," she said. "Please, Robin, I need to meditate a little." Surely he would understand.

"Absolutely not."

Surely nothing. She grew hot. Then she realized she'd stood a bit too close to Cyborg's fireplace. Once she had put out the fire on her cloak, though, she was still angered.

"I don't care, Robin. I'm not going patrolling right now."

"It's patrolling time. Go," he said.

"I swear, that's the only thing your vocabulary consists of."

"Do you have a problem?"

A table upended itself in a flash of black energy.

"No. Not at all," she said, stomping upstairs.

* * *

Starfire sighed.

"Robin, the Tower is still unclean from the New Year's party, and it is now nineteen days after the New Year. This camel animal is still here, for example."

"Really, Star, it's going to be hell to clean up. We're never holding a party like that again. I think someone might've even gone into _Raven's_ room, let alone mine and yours and so on."

"I am missing several pairs of _tyrenax_," Starfire said, blushing. "I hope they did not remove them."

Robin grimaced. "Uh, hate to say it, Star, but they probably did."

"Very uncultured of them," Starfire said.

"You said it." Robin yawned. "I'll go get some breakfast."

He went into the kitchen and saw something very strange indeed.

* * *

_47. Neither has any common sense._

_Bananas of course have no sense at all. And as for Robin… Things explode when I haven't meditated. Robin doesn't let me meditate on my own time. Why? Sheer stubbornness._

_48. Neither has a __brain._

_In bananas, having a brain would be disturbing. In Robin, it would be a welcome change._

_49. And I've had about enough of them._

_Wouldn't you? After 49 comparisons?_

_50. And, they're both unbelievably fruity._

_Well, it's absolutely true. He's an insensitive schizoid..._

There was a knock at her door.

"What?"

"It's Robin. I need to show you something."

"Yeah, sod off. I'm meditating, whether or not you say it's patrolling time," she said.

"No, you don't have to patrol," he said. "I see they got to you, too."

This last statement made her curious enough to open the door a sliver. Robin was holding something up that smelled like smoke.

"What is that?" she asked.

"A robot. If I can't come in, will you come out?"

"Just… just bring it in," she said. He raised an eyebrow and complied. The door shut after him, and he looked around with a bit of curiosity but turned back to her quickly.

"This is a mechanical double of me," he said, pointing to the robot. "Apparently, Cyborg designed a double for me as well as him."

"Oh, _really_," she said. "So you weren't actually being an ignorant jerk."

"Not more so than usual," he said, smiling. Raven felt something settling in her heart and studiously ignored it.

Suddenly, he stiffened and slid something out of his utility belt. Raven recognized it as his bug detector. He held it around all the walls.

"There shouldn't be anything in here," she said. He shushed her. She was going to make a pithy comment when the bug detector beeped.

* * *

"Oh, man," Cyborg said. What had their duplicate Robin been doing in the kitchen anyway? It was Beast Boy's fault, surely, and now the real Robin knew about it. "Agent Y, what did you do?"

Beast Boy mumbled, "Gasp! …what's a crouton detonator?"

Cyborg smacked him. "Wake up, Agent Y! "

"Oh, _yes_, Raven," came the mumble.

Cyborg's eye widened. "Project Rwanda is in _dire_ straits, Agent Y!"

Blearily, Beast Boy got up. "What happened?"

"They found the Dark Caricature in the kitchen. What is it doing in the kitchen?"

"Oh." Beast Boy blanched. "I thought I put it away after we started pumping the pipes—"

"We don't have time for that anymore!" Cyborg nearly shouted. "The Hershey Interstate'll soon be penetrated."

"Dude, you don't need to use the code names. We're both in the Closet," Beast Boy said.

"I guess you have a point," Cyborg said. "But next time, don't fall asleep on me."

"Hey, I was worn out. It's what a long night of Gimmick Viewing does," Beast Boy said.

"Now who's using code names?" asked Cyborg.

"That doesn't count. I don't want to say the real name." _It's way too long and technical_, he implied.

"I suppose you wouldn't," Cyborg said. "Anyway, we'll have to scrap it and wait before we continue."

"But I can't wait! We gotta know what Raven's up to!"

"Be patient, man. We'll figure it out. We've still got the latest tapes. I'll review them and try and make them more clear," Cyborg said. "In the meantime, let's get out of here before anyone finds us."

"Right," Beast Boy said. They stepped outside.

* * *

Robin held up the miniature camera he'd removed from the wall. "They've been spying on you. It's set up exactly for a view of your computer area, funnily enough. If Beast Boy was doing it I'd expect it would be in the shower or something."

Raven shuddered. "Could you check just to make sure?"

"How could I decline an invitation into a pretty girl's bathroom?" Robin said, wearing his patented 'my-cheek-is-hardened-from-years-of-slapping-so-don't-try' look.

"Shut up and check."

He grinned and went into the bathroom.

"Nice bath towels," she heard him say. Raven realized her towels were still the pink ones Starfire had had to lend her after Beast Boy had vomited over her blue ones.

"They're Starfire's."

"Oh-ho, have there been hijinks going on that I don't know about?" asked Robin.

"Aren't you funny," Raven said, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, haven't I ever told you before that Star and I are lovers?"

Robin's head popped out from around the corner. "I'll savor that image," he said. "No bugs in here. I guess you'll just have to decide whether I'd take them out, though."

"Well, I have to trust my leader," she said. _I think the guilt trip would work well on Robin_, she thought.

A shadow crossed his face. "So Beast Boy and Cyborg must be responsible for this," he said. "I'll have words with them."

"I think they have a secret meeting place somewhere. Never knew what _for_ until now, though. Why would they want to see my computer?"

"We'll just have to find out," Robin said. "I'll see if I can pick up any conversations outside."

* * *

Robin crept along the hallway, his Bat-auditory enhancer picking up slight bits of conversation.

"…Hershey Interstate'll soon be penetrated," Cyborg was saying.

Robin wondered if that was unintentional innuendo. It was disturbing either way.

"Dude, you don't need to use the code names. We're both in the closet," Beast Boy was replying.

Robin's jaw dropped. Surely not. No way. He suddenly felt very afraid and alone. His mind was filled with unpleasant images.

"I guess you have a point. But next time, don't fall asleep on me."

Oh, no, no, by the Bat, _no_. How could he have overlooked all the signs? They bickered like an old married couple, too.

"Hey, I was worn out. It's what a long night of Gimmick Viewing does," Beast Boy said.

"Now who's using code names?"

"That doesn't count. I don't want to say the real name."

Robin retched. 'Gimmick viewing,' eh? He didn't want to know what 'gimmick' was code for.

"I suppose you wouldn't," Cyborg said. "Anyway, we'll have to scrap it and wait before we continue."

This couldn't be happening. Robin backed off slowly.

"But I can't wait!" Beast Boy said.

Robin paled and ran away.

* * *

_51. I take that back. I don't hate both._

_I don't hate either, in fact, which is why I can put this on the list. I do like them. But maybe not in excessive amounts. I don't plan to edit those entries, though. Give up four perfectly accurate entries just because I thought a robot duplicate of Robin was the real deal?_

* * *

Robin turned a corner and ran into the camel.

He was on his way back from eavesdropping on the conversation that had shaken his worldview and picture of the Titans' orientation, to tell Raven of what he'd heard.

And the stupid camel from the New Year's party was still there.

"Whoa, girl," he said to it. It kicked him hard between the legs; he cringed.

"Girl is right, apparently," he gasped. It spat viciously on him and he wiped it on his cape disgustedly. At the end of the hallway, he saw Raven's door open.

"Raven, get this camel out of the tower," he called.

Raven looked at him. "The great Robin felled by a camel?" She chanted and the camel flew out of the window. Then, her lips quirked up.

Robin didn't like that.

A tube along the ceiling split in a flash of black energy. "Whoops," she said.

Hydrogen gas spilled all over him, but to no effect.

"What was that for?" he sputtered.

"My list," she said.

* * *

_52. Camels—Jump City ones at least—do not like either one._

_The camel from the New Year's party was in the Tower and more than held its own. It was a little humiliating, I think, for Robin. And as it happens, I remember that at the party, that very same camel tried to eat a banana and spat it out a moment later._

_53. They are both chemically inert._

_I experimented with hydrogen and indeed, Robin doesn't react with it, except to cough and splutter. Bananas react similarly—that is to say, not at all._

* * *

"You know, you could just _ask_ me instead of breaking pipes over me," he said.

"How much fun would that be?"

"How much fun are you normally?"

Raven was quiet for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted.

He stared at her. "I didn't mean that," he said. "It was a knee-jerk reaction."

_That just makes it more honest_, she thought. "It's okay."

He looked really regretful, though. "I really didn't," he said. "I'm really glad we've been hanging out more. Sorry."

"It's really okay," she said. It would be, anyway.

"Can I see your list?" he asked abruptly. "Maybe I can help you come up with some more."

She let out one nervous chuckle. "No, I don't know if you would entirely appreciate it."

"I'll be nice," he said, and she was sure he didn't mean to make it sound the way he did, but, well, he _did_.

* * *

"Creative."

"You're not mad, are you?"

"You've got to do what you've got to do. Have you ever thought of getting more… biological?"

_Crash._

"Whoa! Jeez, Raven!"

"Sorry. My powers just… randomly—you know. Biological." Scoff. "Let's not be disgusting."

"Disgusting? That's not exactly what I meant. Like, literally. Here."

* * *

_54. They both consist of organic matter._

_Well, duh._

_55. If you keep touching them, they start to get bruised._

_Touching, poking, whatever—not great for your capacity to eat them_—

Raven blinked. Where did that come from? Bananas, obviously. She erased it.

—_not great for their overall structural integrity. _

_56. They both have a certain capacity to absorb water in order to grow._

_As do most carbon-based life forms, regrettably_.

* * *

_January 22nd._

Cyborg saw Beast Boy come into the ops room. He paused the game.

"Yo, BB!" he called. "Play some Maximegalon Racing 3000?"

"Sure, dude, I'll be there in a second," said Beast Boy.

Robin looked from one Titan to another. "Uh… I think I'll go. Now."

Their fearless leader dashed out of the room. Cyborg looked at Beast Boy.

"Robin's been acting kinda weird in the last three days. Weirder than usual," he said.

The green Titan shrugged. "You think he knows something about Rwanda?"

"Not quite that kind of weird… just as if he's scared of us or something. I don't know quite what," Cyborg said.

Raven walked in and saw the two Titans. Robin had never gotten around to telling her exactly what he had meant by "their relationship is not at all what you'd think"; they surely couldn't be brothers or long-lost twins.

Anyway, a more pressing matter was at hand.

"Beast Boy, do you know where all the bananas are?" she asked. "I need them for my work."

"What? You can't waste perfectly good bananas on _work_," Beast Boy said. "I'm covering them in tofu and making delicious treats with them."

_Relationship is not at all what you'd think…_ Raven shook the thought out of her mind.

"Where have you hid them?" she asked. "It's for my paper." She watched him closely. His eyes flicked to the couch then looked up at the ceiling.

Raven decided to be safe and ripped out both with her powers. A torrent of bananas fell out of the couch. Beast Boy jumped at her.

"Don't do it!" he shouted, clawing at her cloak.

"Yeah. Ripping my favorite cloak to shreds is a good way to stop me."

"But all of your cloaks are the same."

"That's why they're all my favorites," said Raven. She pulled him off easily and grabbed the bananas, holding them out of Beast Boy's reach. He transformed into a dinosaur, and grabbed them between his jaws. As he started to leap away, though, a black fist punched him in the face. A cascade of bananas came down and Raven quickly teleported them up to her room one by one.

"No!" shouted Beast Boy, back in human form. Raven rolled her eyes and teleported up herself.

* * *

_57. I seem to be fighting for both. _

_ I fought Beast Boy over the banana supply of Titans Tower briefly; I'll still need to check on banana properties for this list, after all. I'm of course not fighting in the same way over Robin; rather, I'm fighting for him because he's the leader of our team. I'm sure you know what I mean._

Raven sighed. This was definitely getting more difficult.

_ 58. Neither one wears a watch. _

_ Well, it's true. I've yet to see Robin wear a watch (but I can just hear him—"It would impair my agility in combat")._

_ 59. Neither one finds Beast Boy funny, but what would?_

_ I hesitate putting something so obvious, but I had to. _

Raven closed the document. Fifty-nine wasn't so bad. Ahead of schedule, even.


	6. 60 to 64

_VI._

Disclaimer: I don't own the Titans.

I'm considering a more serious semi-sequel to this. What do you guys think? Thank you for the reviews, I appreciate them.

* * *

_January 24__th__._

"Remind me what we're doing here, Robin?"

"Well, five days ago I discovered Cyborg and Beast Boy were … um… shared an alternative lifestyle."

"If you're saying they're closeted…"

"Yes. Exactly," Robin said. He twirled Raven under his arm. She was surprisingly compliant.

"So, naturally, you decided the only place you could tell me was the mayor's ball."

"Well, yeah," he said, awkwardly. "I wanted to let you know you don't have to worry about cameras in your bathroom."

"Except from you," Raven said.

"I would, but my Bat-cameras are utility belt only."

"Bat-cameras? What's next, Bat-bats?"

"Already covered." He smirked. "'Sides, it's not like you vary the old 'Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos' routine much."

They continued to spin, rather randomly, but no one made any comment about the dancing.

"And you don't vary the 'Titans, go' routine much."

"True," Robin admitted.

"So," she prompted. "Why the mayor's ball?"

He sighed. Apparently she wasn't going to let him get away without an explanation. But he didn't really have one, did he? Well, what was wrong with answering an invitation to a public event? Sure, the mayor seemed to have expected that it would be Starfire he brought, but what business of it was the mayor's? "I also just wanted to bring you out somewhere," he said. "Somewhere in the vicinity of other living beings. You should socialize more."

"I'm not Barack Obama," she said. "I don't want to socialize."

"That was surprisingly topical," he said with a raised eyebrow. "Was that a joke?"

"Stop acting so surprised," she said. "You know I joke."

He grinned. "I think you have the best sense of humor of any of us, actually."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Dry wit," he said. "You make me laugh a lot, but you don't let yourself laugh." He leaned in and spoke more quietly. "So, let yourself laugh. I don't mean destroy the universe..."

"Well, good thing you told me," she said. "I was all ready to go and blow up a galaxy or two."

"Just, let yourself have some fun, y'know?" he said, feeling stupid._ Yes, Robin,_ said the Raven-voice in his head, _you're the poster child for fun. _

But the real Raven seemed to be uncertainly scratching her chin. "Well," she started, in a low tone. Suddenly, someone came up to Robin. She had hearts in her eyes, blonder hair than Robin had ever seen before, and a grin wider than Starfire's.

* * *

_60. Some people have odd fantasies about both._

_ Robin brought me to the mayor's ball earlier tonight. While we were there, we discussed Beast Boy and Cyborg's odd orientations and then were interrupted by a very blonde girl. She proclaimed how infatuated she was with him. This is a fairly regular occurrence, but then she felt the need to explain in great detail her fantasy about what she'd do with him, a pit of whipped cream, several whips, and a smooth banana._

_Since she was the mayor's daughter, he could hardly beat her up. He told me to do it._

_Well, he told me I should have some fun, anyway. Close enough._

* * *

The next day, Raven walked into the ops room to find Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy waiting for her.

"Happy belated Blorthog, Raven. And since you've had such an undue interest in bananas lately, according to BB anyway," Cyborg started, before Raven interrupted him.

"Azar shaking and baking. How many times do I have to say it? It's for my class."

"Azar… shaking and baking?" asked Cyborg.

"Please, what is this shaking and baking? Is it conducive to thought to shake one's self while one bakes?"

"Feel free to do that," Beast Boy said. Raven decided he was _extremely_ closeted.

"It's just a phrase," she said. "Actually, I'm not sure it's even a phrase, really."

"Anyway," Cyborg said. "Here ya go." He handed her a stuffed banana. She raised an eyebrow.

"What am I supposed to do with a stuffed banana? Clutch it to my chest at night?"

"Raven, I am sure Cyborg and Beast Boy are aware that it will never replace Boppsy the stuffed rabbit," said Starfire helpfully, "but it is just so adorable. Look, it has marbles representing ocular organs!"

"_Boppsy the stuffed…_" Beast Boy started.

"I knew I should never have let Starfire into my room," grumbled Raven.

Starfire blushed. "Um… should I not have mentioned your animal menagerie?"

Raven scowled. "Yes."

"I-should have?"

"No," she said, chagrined. "I said 'yes' meaning 'no.'"

"Oh. Yes means no?"

"Well…" started Raven.

"Does no then mean yes?"

"No."

"Is that a yes?"

"No," Raven said, a vein starting to throb in her forehead.

"It is?"

"No!" She paused. "Or... yes. Whatever."

Starfire wouldn't let up. "I have heard much about the tradition of Opposite Day from Beast Boy. For example, when one expresses lustful thoughts about another's body on Opposite Day, their actual intention is to convey a platonic friendship. Is today Opposite Day?"

"Go away, Starfire."

"But…"

"Here," said Raven. "Let's play the quiet game."

Starfire brightened. "Oh, yes, friend Raven! I would enjoy any game with you!"

Raven was slightly touched but ignored the feeling. "You go first."

Starfire nodded and walked out.

"_Anyway_," Cyborg said, again. "It can do more than look soft and huggable." He tapped its end.

"It has a pen with any color of ink..."

He squeezed it.

"…and plays messages in twenty-six different languages."

"Which is like everything except Egyptian," Beast Boy put in.

"Well, I always wanted a multilingual banana," she said. "Thanks, Cyborg."

Beast Boy grumbled.

"And I guess I'm just a sack of potatoes," he said.

"And thanks, Beast Boy," Raven said, rolling her eyes. The green Titan straightened.

"Wait, you didn't just totally put me down and/or tell me off?"

"How do you pronounce 'and/or'?" Raven asked.

"Very carefully," said Beast Boy. "Now who are you and what have you done with our Raven?"

Raven sighed. "That's what I get for trying to be nice."

"Yeah," said Beast Boy. "It's _way_ out of character."

"Fine," she said.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Beast Boy was curled into a small ball and whimpering.

"That's our Raven all right," he moaned.

* * *

_61. Either one with cooking implements more complicated than a microwave could well end in disaster._

_Not even talking about the New Year's party—the statute of limitations won't expire for years and years—neither Robin nor bananas can operate complex cooking machinery. I've heard tell that Batman is similarly incompetent in the sack. By sack, I mean 'sack of potatoes to cook with,' of course. At any rate, Robin can't cook._

_ 62. Have I mentioned just how bright and fruity they are?_

_ Maybe I have. Nevertheless, it bears repeating. I could say that one hundred times and it would still apply._

_63. Well…I've been enraged by both of them at some point._

_ It wasn't Robin's fault, since he was actually a robot. I think it says something about him, though, that I couldn't tell at first. As for bananas, it wasn't their fault either. Beast Boy was just being overprotective. What was he going to do, make tofu bananas again? _

_ 64. Neither one… consumes antifreeze._

Raven wondered where that had come from, then remembered. She added:

_Habitually._

She thought how she could best phrase this. _It'll require a recounting of the New Year's party_, she thought. _But I have to get a hundred of these things._

Perhaps she could only use the salient details. She thought back to the party…

* * *

_December 16th._

"…so in lieu of paying for the elephant, I offered to host the Jump City costume party at Titans Tower," Robin said. He looked slightly dejected, his head resting in his hands.

"Well, it could be worse," said Beast Boy. "I'll get started on the decorations."

He stood up and walked very quickly to the door. Robin turned around, scowling.

"No disco lights, Beast Boy."

Beast Boy sighed, seeming to deflate. "What's the point of a party without disco lights?"

"I don't know, Robin. I'd think you'd be a pretty big fan of disco lights," Raven said.

She lounged back on the couch. Beast Boy popped up next to her every so often, waving the Gamestation in her face. Starfire sat across from her almost cuddling Robin. Robin didn't seem to notice, though. Instead, he rolled his eyes in a way that reminded Raven of something.

Well, of course. Herself.

"I guess I should've seen that coming," he said.

"Maybe you were just blinded by your attire," Raven said. Robin chuckled.

"But, I do not understand," Starfire said. "I believed that the tires were usually black. How could they be blinding?"

"Attire, Starfire," Raven said. "Dress."

"Robin does not have a dress…" Starfire started.

"You're not this dense," Raven said. "Come on. Clothes."

"Oh. Well. I see nothing wrong with friend Robin's choice of clothing," Starfire said.

"Yeah, but have you seen your room lately?" Raven asked.

Robin was smiling again.

"I have indeed seen my room," Starfire said. "Why do you ask?"

"Forget it," Raven muttered. "So, what's this New Year's party going to be like?"

Beast Boy's eyes lit up. Raven slumped. _Whenever that happens, something bad is going to follow._

* * *

"…a Titans-themed costume party," Beast Boy finished. It had taken him the better part of an hour to get there, but Raven had to admit it wasn't a half-bad idea when it came to it. Naturally it was stupid, but maybe less stupid than Beast Boy's usual fare.

Robin seemed to share her thoughts. He rubbed his chin.

"We can try it, Beast Boy. Not just the Titans, or that would get confusing," he said.

"Dude, yeah! People can be villains too. Not Slade or anything," Beast Boy said.

"I think it is a terrific idea," Starfire said.

"Fine," Raven said. "Just don't make me go."

"Why?" asked Robin. "We all have to pay for the elephant matter."

"Even though it was all Beast Boy's fault?" asked Raven.

"Unfortunately, yes," Robin said.

"Hey! It was Cyborg's fault too," Beast Boy said.

"For not programming the Tower defenses to attack elephants?" asked Raven.

"Yeah!"

"Even though you transform into an elephant all the time?"

"Y… y… yeah," Beast Boy said.

"And though he managed to fend _off_ the elephant which is why he's in the hospital?"

"Well!" Beast Boy huffed. "Try to help some people out, with a great idea, this is what you get. Everyone loves costumes!"

"All right," Robin said. "We'll do it. It'll make dressing up easier for us, anyway."

* * *

_December 31st._

The New Year's party was an unexpected success, considering they had agreed not to advertise it or draw attention to it in any way; none of the Titans wanted their tower invaded. Six hundred or so people had attended anyway. Raven noticed that no one had dressed up as any Titan except Robin-then again, the others were hard to do if you didn't have grey skin, green skin, orange skin, or a lot of cybernetic implants. Also, perhaps in consideration of Robin, people had chosen not to go as Slade. Still, there were several Robins wandering around, and several Red X's as well. Dr. Light was also surprisingly popular.

Raven bumped into the real Robin talking with the Jump City mayor, who was dressed as Warp.

"…which is why the budget is as big as it is," Robin finished.

"I see. But don't you have a private donor? Bruce Wayne?"

"I wouldn't want to impose on Mr. Wayne too much," said Robin. "And anyway, _he_ doesn't have a contract with the Titans." Robin smiled deviously.

"Yes. Yes, of course," the mayor said, clearly wishing that the laser blasters on his shoulders were real. Raven decided to save the poor man.

"We got a magician to dress up as Mumbo for the event, Robin," Raven said. "He's coming on in a few minutes."

"Oh, great," Robin said. "Shall we go down?"

"Sure," Raven said. She felt him casually take her arm and they went downstairs, where the Mumbo magician had just arrived from upstairs.

* * *

Three hours later, Raven came out clutching at Robin. The world swam before her eyes.

"I knew letting Beast Boy pick the magician," she slurred, "was a bad idea."

Robin looked at her with concern.

"You seem a little off," he said. "Like, drugged up or something. Maybe you breathed in some of those gases I saw."

Raven swiveled. "He had gas?"

Robin stared for a moment and laughed. "Not _that_ kind of gas, you big silly," he said. Then, he giggled, choked, straightened, glanced about nervously, and looked down.

"I thought I saw gases. Maybe it was the bag of tricks which let out the camel. And just after we'd finished with the elephant, too," he said.

Raven looked up at him.

"Great," she said.

All the other guests were in a similar condition. The Tower was spattered with juice and wine stains. Everyone staggered about amiably.

Robin picked up a jar of what Raven could vaguely tell was antifreeze. "Why's this pudding in a jar?" he asked.

"It's antifreeze," she said. "But still, why's that in a jar?"

Robin got a spoon out.

"I think I'll have it now," he said.

Raven's eyes widened. "I don't think antifreeze is edible," she said. "But it couldn't hurt to try, I suppose."

"It's pudding, Raven. Here, I'll show you." He took the spoon and dug in.

As soon as the antifreeze touched his lips, he gagged. It seemed to have restored some manner of order to his mind. He looked frantically at the spoon, did a spit-take, and rinsed his mouth. Raven stumbled over to him again.

"Why's the antifreeze in a jar?" he asked. "Uh, Raven?"

And then she blacked out.

* * *

_January 25th._

Raven looked at her synopsis of the party.

"I guess that'll do," she said to nothing in particular. She quickly went to her email and checked it again. She'd received sixteen more spam mails and deleted them, then looked at the last remaining email.

From: TitansFans Admin

To: Raven

Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: ya rite

Dear Raven,

We received your forwarded message and have mediated the matter. The offending user, **Megatherium**, has had his or her posting privileges revoked. Thank you for your vigilance.

Regards,

The Admins

P.S.: Hi, TritanMod here. I just was wondering… I traced your IP address and it is used by the Tower computers… are you really Raven? If so, _please please please _come and post something!

Raven smiled at the last note. She typed:

From: Raven

To: TitansFans Admin

Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Re: ya rite

TritanMod,

Thanks for taking care of Megatherium. I doubt, however, that it was necessary. Turns out he was actually Control Freak. He won't be doing much posting from behind bars.

…urgh, I sound like Robin.

And yes, I'm actually Raven, though no one will believe me, I'm afraid. What would you want me to post about?

Raven

Raven turned the computer off and went downstairs.


	7. 65 to 87

_VII._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

Thanks for your continued reviews. As always, I appreciate them.

* * *

As Raven arrived in the kitchen, she found Robin on the phone. Beast Boy and Cyborg were close together on the couch playing the Gamestation. Starfire watched them excitedly, cheering for both.

"What's for dinner?" she asked Robin. He put his hand over the phone.

"What do you want?" he asked. "I'm ordering right now."

"Oh," she said. "I don't know. Pick whatever."

Robin shrugged and turned back to the phone.

"_Je voudrais trois steak frites,_" he said. "_Avec…_"

Raven looked at him. "You know French?"

"_Certainement_," he said.

She went upstairs.

* * *

She glanced at #37 and sighed.

_ 65. Apparently Robin can speak French. And so can my new stuffed banana pen. _

_ This pen is a touching gift, really. Very nice of Cyborg and Beast Boy to get it for me. But it does complicate matters, since it says things in twenty-six languages, including French. Not very intelligent things, yes, but it does speak. We are taking a wide view of the term banana, you see. Because a banana is really a concept, not a fruit. I think Aristotle would agree._

She erased #37 and typed instead:

_37. Neither one can speak Spanish._

* * *

_66. And they can both speak Spanish as well._

_ As soon as I got down from writing the last entry, I heard him on the phone with the Titans East. (Derivative little clorbags. They should come up with their own name. Now we're "Teen Titans West.") Anyway, he was talking to those twins, Mas y Menos. Well, he was talking to one of them, anyway. Mas or Y Menos. Look, I speak seven languages but not Spanish. I couldn't catch a single syllable but he obviously understood._

Raven sighed. What was it Beast Boy said the talking pen couldn't speak? Ah, yes. She typed:

_37. Neither one can speak Sanskrit. _

"That's more like it," she said. What was she at now? Sixty-seven?

_ 67. They both don't make much noise. _

_ Robin isn't at all like the obnoxiously loud Cyborg and Beast Boy. The only thing he ever shouts is "Titans! Go!" and such nonsense. Bananas only go "splat" when you squish them. Come to think of that, that applies to Robin, too, but that's the only thing bananas do._

_ 68. I think they look better from behind._

_ Face it—no pun intended—from the front, Robin's costume is alarmingly fruity. Only his constant homophobic near-vomiting when he approaches Beast Boy or Cyborg these days convinces me that he doesn't lead an alternative lifestyle himself. From behind, the cape covers up the worst of it._

_ Even though from in front, the mask makes him look kind of cool. _

_ Oh, and I don't really care how bananas look from behind or in front. The difference is minimal, but for argument's sake let's say I like the banana-behind look better._

_ 69. Though from the…_

Well, maybe this was not the appropriate number for a lewd joke.

_69. Cyborg doesn't eat either one._

Raven looked at that one carefully.

"Still kind of lewd considering the recent developments," she decided, "but tolerable."

_My teammate Cyborg is a very meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. The only fruit he eats is fruitcake—no bananas. Robin, needless to say, is not a part of Cyborg's diet, unless there's something very wrong there that I don't know about. And while I'd be willing to believe it on Robin's part (see points one, two, three, thirteen, twenty-five, etc. on this list for elaboration on that)… well, I think that Cyborg would already have a life partner._

She thought suddenly of an exception to the previous.

_ 70. But he'd eat either one under the influence of some viruses. _

_A while ago Beast Boy, as is his wont, was being stupid and trying to play some stupid game. He got Cyborg's mainframe infected (I'm not quite sure on the details) and Cyborg went nuts and tried to eat everything in sight. This included stop signs and Mountain Dew, so in comparison bananas or Robin are probably edible as well._

Raven couldn't think of too much else at the moment, and she was tired of writing. She saved the file and logged off the computer again.

Then, Beast Boy shouted, "Look! It's Mad Mod!"

* * *

"Grah!" shouted Mad Mod. "Sod off, ya loon!"

The Titans stared at the spectacle not a hundred yards away from them; Mad Mod had somehow crossed the river channel onto the Titans' island and was being attacked. By nothing.

"Flying monkeys!" screamed the Brit. He writhed about.

"No time for that," Robin said. "Titans!"

Raven noted that he seemed to have at least temporarily put aside the question of sexual orientation. She supposed Robin would always put aside personal matters whenever he was involved in a case.

"What's the harm in letting the guy stumble around?" asked Raven.

"Well, he's a supervillain. He could be up to something," Beast Boy said.

"I don't know if it's exactly legal to bring him in for something he hasn't done yet, man," said Cyborg. "According to my research…"

"Thanks, Dorothy Ann," Robin said.

"Ha, ha," Cyborg said. "Article 78, Subsection 16, Paragraph 23 of the Jump City Legal Code on Superheroes states that…"

"Inquisition later, acquisition _now_," Robin said. "Titans! Go!"

Mad Mod offered no resistance as they surrounded him and chained him up, though Raven didn't think that a man of his age would be able to do much against them.

"Hm," she said aloud. "Surprising."

"Yeah," Robin said. "We should investigate this further. I'll have the police check out his blood chemistry."

"Right," said Raven.

As one, the communicators rang out. Robin struck a pose.

"Titans! Trouble! Maybe for real this time," he said.

* * *

"Get away from me, snothead!" shouted Gizmo. He was on top of a roof, mechanical legs extended, with his jetpack cooling down. And he was squirming.

"Wow. Déjà vu," said Raven. She was waiting for the rest of the team to get there; not everyone could teleport to any location in Jump City in five seconds. She'd have teleported the whole team, but they were fiercely independent, and anyway, it would expend far too much energy. She looked back at Gizmo.

On a second look, it was clear Gizmo's flailing had a reason behind it. A quick figure darted about him and expertly dodged the random thrashings of Gizmo. The HIVE villain shot various weapons at him, many of which Raven had never seen him use before, but not a one could get by. Those few that impacted with the figure were knocked aside harmlessly.

"Hey, crud-face," Gizmo said, having calmed down slightly. "Dodge _this!_"

He hefted a gigantic bazooka onto his shoulder and fired point-blank at the figure. The figure entered an odd series of contortions and pulled out a canister. As the missile reached it, the canister sprayed out something. The missile flashed with a bright light, and impacted the dark-clothed figure.

"Hah!" shouted Gizmo.

But it didn't explode. The figure rubbed its stomach and knocked the missile away. Gizmo stared.

"All I want," said the figure, in a tone vaguely familiar to Raven, "is your star mirror."

"Wha… howdja know about that, freak?" asked Gizmo. The figure snorted and darted in close.

"I have my sources," it said. "Hand it over or else."

"Else _what?_" asked the small villain, sneering.

The figure shrugged, palmed another canister, and sprayed him straight in the face. Gizmo stumbled back.

"Ooh… pretty colors…" he mumbled.

The figure glanced down and clearly saw the Titans, finally assembled.

"Right. Titans! Move!" shouted Robin.

The figure grabbed another can and sprayed it over the building edge; as it flipped away, the air seemed to incinerate itself at random. Hazily Raven saw the figure pressing buttons on Gizmo's suit; it grabbed something small and glittering and dashed away, tossing more of the gas canisters at the Titans.

Once the Titans met again on the other side of the burning air, the figure was already well gone. Raven looked at Robin.

"Did you hear his voice?" she asked him.

"Yeah," Robin said. He was looking grim. "Red X."

* * *

"How'd he get those new things?" Cyborg asked. They were back at the Tower inside the ops room. Robin frowned.

"I have a few ideas, but it's not really important right now," he said. "What's really important is what X is after. What's a 'star mirror,' Cy?"

"Uh…" Cyborg paused. "You might not want to know."

"Tell me, Cy," Robin said.

"Yeah, what could be so bad?" asked Beast Boy.

Raven rolled her eyes.

"Well, if you insist, man," said Cyborg. "It sounds like the layman term for a solar light amplification-diffraction emitter."

He paused tensely.

"A, uh, SLADE."

Cyborg and Starfire sweatdropped. Raven repressed a hearty laugh. Beast Boy didn't, and was whacked on the head for it. Robin just stood there.

"I see," the Titan leader finally said. "Well. What does this… SLADE… do?"

"It takes starlight and passes it through opaque lenses and amplifies it…" Cyborg continued with technical terms that Raven gradually lost track of. Robin started doodling on the table.

Beast Boy sat up, enraptured.

"So it brings a giant laser beam firing all onto one spot in a big explosion?" he asked. "Dude! That's awesome."

"Wow," Raven said. "Beast Boy just explained something a million times more clearly than Cyborg."

Beast Boy stared at her.

"Wow. Raven was just… nice to me. Do you have a knife at my jugular or something?"

"It was more an insult to Cyborg than anything," muttered Raven.

Robin stood stiffly. "Well. We'll hunt down this… this… SLADE… Slade… I'll get you, Slade. Oh, I'll get you all right."

He growled. Then, he received odd looks and smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry," he said. "C'mon. Let's go find out what else Red X has been up to."

As she passed Robin's seat, Raven looked down and noticed that he'd been doodling a little picture of Slade with laser cannons sticking out of the mask, with "Slade" in calligraphy nearby. She shook her head amusedly. At least it was well-drawn.

Wait. Well-drawn.

"Just a second, guys," she said.

* * *

_71. Regarding #42: Apparently I was wrong about that as well. Banana pens can obviously draw, and so can Robin._

_ Robin can at least draw a mean Slade-with-laser-guns, with some "Slade" calligraphy next to it. Banana pens draw anything you please, given the artist._

Sighing, Raven replaced the previous entry with

_42. Neither one is a performance artist._

_72. A knife is a useful tool to have around for them._

_Robin's proficiency with all weapons is high. And if you wanted a banana split, then you'd need a knife, wouldn't you?_

And, on a final whim, she added one more.

_ 73. In case you'd forgotten, they are both decidedly fruity._

_Why does Robin know calligraphy?_

* * *

_January 31__st__._

Raven stood at her window. She had made no progress on her paper and it was due in… two weeks.. Her teacher's rather anal-retentive instructions had been "before 11:59 PM on February 14th, first day of the last week of class."

Granted, she was ahead of schedule, with more than two-thirds. Still, the last ten percent always seemed to take the longest.

Outside, Robin was chasing Beast Boy trying to get his bottle of hair gel back.

"Why bother?" she heard Cyborg shout. "It's, like, three bucks, man."

"It has sentimental value," Robin shouted back. He hurled a birdarang. Beast Boy ducked, but it flew well over his head. The green Titan turned around and blew a raspberry.

Robin smirked.

A realization suddenly dawned on Beast Boy. He gulped and looked up.

A prearranged bag of bananas was cut open and falling towards him.

At the same time, Robin bolted up to Beast Boy. His bo staff and the bananas smashed into Beast Boy at the exact same time, and the transforming Titan was buried underneath, limbs sticking out oddly.

Robin grinned, plucked the hair gel from his hand, and strode away.

Raven turned to her computer and started typing.

_ 74. Both have hit Beast Boy, simultaneously. It was very satisfying._

_ Robin arranged a trap for Beast Boy this morning. He used, for some reason, bananas. Personally, I think they've all noticed that I've been paying too much attention to bananas lately, so they're all taunting me. And if you're not careful, they'll get _you_ too. At any rate, the bananas hit Beast Boy at the same time Robin did._

_ 75. They're both related to monkeys._

(In a rather illogical way, Raven silently admitted.)

_Monkeys evolve into humans like Robin; monkeys like bananas. Rather odd way to "relate" but I'll take whatever I can get._

_ 76. Neither one handles nuclear weaponry._

_ At least, I certainly hope neither one ever gets the opportunity to. Ugh. Can you imagine a supervillain called "The Banana?" One with nuclear weapons? _

_ 77. They both tend to avoid firearms._

_ Putting aside the question of legality, Robin doesn't use weapons like that. Instead, he uses his staff and, of all things, birdarangs. Bananas… well… you know. _

* * *

Beast Boy crept into the Secret Closet Lair. Or the former Secret Closet Lair. He and Cyborg had been avoiding it for a while until the coast seemed clear; now he was coming back to—sigh—dismantle the operation. And Operation Rwanda had been so nearly a success, too. But first—he had to save a friend.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he whispered.

A spider scuttled out of the corner.

"Yeah, you," Beast Boy said. "You know me! We're pals, dude!"

It paused nervously and scampered about.

"Come on!" urged Beast Boy. "I don't know if…"

He heard a creaking noise behind him, dashed into the wall in a panic, slipped, and turned on a light switch he hadn't known was there.

The Secret Closet Lair was actually a plumbing station of some sort. His "magic chalkboard" was a pool of some kind of thermal compound liquid that congealed as soon as he drew anything on it.

Cyborg must've wondered why he'd called it a closet. Beast Boy began to get up, put his hand on a switch, and heard a creak. He panicked, screamed, and turned into a fly.

The spider looked up at him greedily.

It was perhaps lucky that Beast Boy couldn't talk as an animal. A torrent of profanity would've ensued.

* * *

"Ca-li-for-nia girls, we're unde_ni_able," sang Robin. Quietly, so that no one else would hear. He adjusted his mask. It was a bit awkward to use in the shower, but…

He heard a splashing outside and quickly shifted into Titans-go-mode. He peeked outside the shower curtain.

Sludge was pouring out of the toilet.

"Damn!" he yelled.

"What is it?" said Raven's voice from outside.

"The toilet just overflowed," he said, then quickly added, "Without me even doing anything." He shut off the shower and put on a towel. "Something's up with the Tower, or else BB is up to something again."

He wrapped the towel around his waist, looked down, then frowned and glanced up again.

"What're you doing outside my bathroom door, Raven?"

Robin couldn't see Raven, but he hoped she was blushing.

"Nothing, Robin."

"Trying to peel my banana skin?" he said raunchily.

"Give it a rest," Raven said, but with a hint of amusement. "You're sounding like Beast Boy."

"Can't have that," Robin said. "Hey, hand me a toilet plunger. We'll try fixing it here first."

He heard the hum of her powers activating and then deactivating, and opened the door. Much to the inflation of his ego, he noticed that she did in fact make a sideways glance at him before staring fixedly at the toilet. Or maybe that was because he'd just hit his arm on the counter and cursed. Didn't matter.

"Smooth," she said.

"I didn't do anything," said Robin. "As you can see, I was in the shower."

"See and hear," Raven said. "Fine, fresh, fierce…"

He grinned. "You continue to amaze with new depths, Raven."

She handed him the toilet plunger.

* * *

_ 78. Neither one is particularly useful with the toilet plunger._

_ I can't see a banana being terribly effective at toilet plunging, and I didn't see Robin being very effective with the toilet plunger. He plunged and plunged—_

Raven restrained a small grin. It became a bigger one instead. She finally decided to just let it out and smiled. Far away, explosions happened.

_ He plunged and plunged to no avail. Cyborg is going to have to get involved in this matter._

Raven thought for a moment and added more.

_ 79. Neither one fares well when Slade is around. _

_That Slade and his cravings. He wants an apprentice in Robin and wanted snacks in bananas. And even if this is patently false, I dare you to find a more reliable source on Slade than a Teen Titan. At any rate, Robin didn't fare well with Slade around and neither did bananas._

_80. They can't see well or at all in the dark._

_ Bananas are anatomically unequipped. Robin's night vision is like other humans'—not too good. Granted, it's much better than humans in general, but not as good as, say, an owl. _

_81. Neither one reacts well to caterpillars._

_ After the toilet got under control, Beast Boy appeared on the surface of the toilet in the form of a caterpillar. Robin nearly had a stroke right then and there. Maybe he just wasn't expecting Beast Boy to become a rhinoceros. Anyway, bananas get eaten through by caterpillars. Neither one is a good reaction._

_82. Even though—or maybe because—they're so fruity and bright._

_You knew it was coming._

_83. And I'm glad for the free world that neither one is technically allowed to drive cars. _

_Otherwise Robin might become a cab driver. The mortality rate would skyrocket. _

_ 84. Both are commonly found in Gotham._

_ Yes. Gotham. Bananas and Robin were in Gotham._

_85. And now both are in Jump City._

_Bananas and Robin have both been seen in Jump City. Imagine that._

_ 86. Neither one has a lot of estrogen._

_ I bet there would be controversy if there was estrogen in bananas, and Robin isn't a female, supposedly._

_ 87. Come to think of it, I doubt the amount of testosterone either has, too._

_ Again, bananas don't contain much testosterone unless something's quite wrong. Robin, while certainly a capable fighter, is not exactly bulky. Though he insists you see all the muscles under the skin-tight costume. _


	8. 88 to 91

_VIII._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

Sorry if there was a false alarm. I'd thought this was the wrong version of this chapter.

Raven mentioned the events of "Bunny Raven" in point #38 (chapter 4), but she really doesn't want to think about it any more than she has to.

_

* * *

February 7__th__._

They'd restored running water in the Tower. Beast Boy had recovered from his drenching. He and Cyborg had left somewhere—something about the roof—and Robin appeared faintly worried about it.

However, he didn't say anything; instead, he told Raven, "We're going out to find out what else X's been up to."

She'd said, "I'd like to meditate."

He'd said, "Please?"

She had been taken aback, and almost touched that he hadn't just exerted his authority. So she went with him. They had been searching for Control Freak for half an hour now, Robin insisting that this was the key to finding Red X. Raven supposed that a guess and check strategy had to start somewhere, and so she continued the rather monotonous process of teleporting them around to the comic book nerd's previously known houses.

"Hey, Raven," Robin said. Raven was rather glad the monotony was ended.

"Yes?" she said.

"What have you been reading lately?"

Raven frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"What have you been reading lately?" he repeated. "You know. Your eyes are hit by photons reflected from a page with ink on it?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, _that_ kind of reading." She turned to look at him. "You haven't asked me about literature before."

He seemed to casually shrug. "We're probably the only two who read in the Tower."

"Yes, you read technical papers. Comprehensively."

"I wouldn't denigrate the utility of thoughts or phrases that have been used or might be used in the future in journals of a technical or professional sort for our future endeavors, whether in keeping with our current crime-fighting ethos or otherwise," he rolled off.

"_War and Peace_," she said. "Happy?"

He smiled. "Yes," he said, and his expression turned thoughtful. "Who would you say I'm most like?"

"In the book?" she said slowly. What was he up to?

"Yes," he said, simply.

"Nikolai Rostov," she said.

The smile grew on his face. "Why's that?" he asked.

"What is this, Oprah's book club?"

"I don't think they read _War and Peace_ there."

"Actually, she did pick it."

"Oh," he said. "I guess that shows how much Oprah I watch." His chin tilted up. "And how much Oprah you watch."

"Beast Boy watches it," she said automatically.

"Don't try to avoid the question," he said. "Is it because he's a dashing young officer?"

"Impetuous," she said. "Courageous, a little naïve at first, makes mistakes but fixes them. "

He flashed a grin. "It's funny, because if I were to compare you to anyone, it would be Princess Maria. Overbearing father, kind of withdrawn, spiritually devoted, intelligent…"

"Don't forget remarkably plain and boring," she said.

"Not to Nikolai," he said. He looked at her with a strange, ambivalent expression. Yes, Raven thought, Nikolai had had a childhood crush on his cousin Sonia, and had even promised to marry her, but during the Russian retreat, he came to Maria's home, saved her from the nearly-rioting peasants, and fallen in love with her. Because she was beautiful when she didn't try; she was beautiful when she wasn't worried.

Raven, in the conversational lull, took out her communicator—an all-purpose gadget that could also access the Internet. She scanned through the old translation text online, until she came across what she'd remembered:

_Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness at her reflection in the glass. "She flatters me," thought the princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter her friend, the princess' eyes—large, deep and luminous (it seemed as if at times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—were so beautiful that very often in spite of the plainness of her face they gave her an attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes- the look they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. _

She was lost in thought for a while, and they made their way around the city quietly.

"Robin," Raven eventually said. He turned to her.

"You never mentioned why we're looking for Control Freak," she said.

"You remember he said he'd been experimenting with mind-altering drugs? And X used some kind of gas on Gizmo, and probably something similar on Mad Mod, too."

"I see," said Raven. They had arrived at a more promising location—there were signs of Control Freak's recent habitation, like discarded pizza boxes and an intense smell. Going inside, Raven immediately saw the place had been ransacked.

"Look," she said. "Check out the computer."

Robin nodded and opened the case. "There's some stuff missing. Control Freak must've had a state-of-the-art video card, but there's nothing in here."

"Probably a holographic 3D video card," Raven said. "One that Red X would want."

"Right," Robin said. "So…"

He broke off and started pacing. His face was twisting from excitement to concern.

"I see. I see," he said.

"What," Raven said, "do you see. No doubt something of _paramount_ importance."

"Well, literally," he said, "nothing except your lovely face." She heard sarcasm. She'd been prepared for it, of course; she always was.

"Funny," she said.

"Who said I was joking?" asked Robin.

Another thump came from Raven's chest. "You were being sarcastic."

"I wasn't," he said, "though your face wasn't what I originally meant."

_Crash._

"You—you saw something else. What was that?" she said, quickly mastering herself again. But he could hardly be expected to have missed all this flustering.

"Raven," he said, gently. "I don't know if you want to hear this again, or if you think I'm lying to make you feel better, or what—but I've told you so many times, how… how amazing you are. How you're the bravest person I know, the only one who's stood up to the demon that was going to destroy the whole universe and won. And how you deserve our friendship more than anyone else."

It was exactly this that was causing problems. More explosions, heedless—a toaster behind her shattered and disintegrated. She closed her eyes, struggling to grab the reins.

"After I caused it," she said. "Feeling good means my powers are out of control. Feeling anything means I'm out of control, Robin. I appreciate it. Really." She took a breath. "You were the only one who believed in me. I can't thank you enough for helping me, but I don't need your pity."

"It's not pity," he told her. "I'm just sad that," he seemed to take a quick breath, "you don't want to love us the way we love you. Why don't you—"

"Why don't you try wearing a different costume?" she retorted. She had to get control of this conversation before it really went places she didn't want to go.

Unexpectedly, he answered. "Because it's my right. It's kind of a long story. But Batman decided that crime-fighting was too dangerous for a kid, and asked me—demanded—that I give it up. But I wasn't a kid, I thought I'd never been a kid. And in retrospect, he had a point. But I made it through. I refused to give up the costume, and I kept it, and now it doesn't mean being a sidekick anymore. It's being a hero, if I can."

She stared. "Really?" was all she could think to say.

"Really. So, Raven," he said, and he seemed a lot closer, close enough that she could sense his presence, vibrant, alive, concerned.

"I—I don't," started Raven.

"Please," he said, "let us value you. Value yourself."

She blinked. She gave the matter serious thought. "You see what emotion does to my powers," she said, looking down, gesturing at the room around her, which she knew had to be in a mess by now.

He nodded. "So go somewhere it can't do anything. We have a spaceship, you know."

Raven took a breath. "All right," she said. There was a pause.

"You're the best," she said, deadpan, but she knew—well, she hoped—he could feel how earnestly she meant it.

He smiled. "Now," he said, "let's go. I have a hunch about Red X."

* * *

_88. Not to get soft all of a sudden. But they are both upright, solid support._

_ This kind of comparison might be pushing the limits of double meanings; bananas are mostly upright, except for the curve noted earlier in the list; and bananas will, nutritionally speaking, solidly support anyone as part of a healthy breakfast, so on and so on._

* * *

"If I'm right," Robin said, "then we need to find Chang again."

Raven was flying him around the city. They had just finished examining—well, looting—Control Freak's residence, and now Robin had requested that she take him around the islands in Jump River, or whatever the river was called. She hoped it wasn't really "Jump River." What a stupid name.

"Raven, go left!"

Whoops. She did. A flock of geese honked angrily at them. Robin breathed a sigh.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's okay," he said. "I'd just like to keep all my limbs on my body."

She flushed and he looked up. "I'm just kidding." _Get a grip_, she told herself. Emotions couldn't slip out. Not with Robin.

"Check out that island," he said, pointing to the right.

She tried to make a gentle turn. She really did. Instead, she swerved right—managing to throw him off of her. She gasped and swooped back for him, but a grappling hook ripped into a nearby tree and he catapulted by, grabbed her, and she found herself in his grip instead. Slowly he let go and she flew towards the island again.

"Sorry," Raven muttered, hating herself. The frustration was only making it harder to control, evidently. But he smiled anyway, and she felt a bit better.

"Here we are," he said.

They were on a barren rock. Stones were strewn across the area.

"What makes this any different from the other islands?" asked Raven.

"Solinium tracker. Just call it part of that fruity belt," Robin said.

She might have been rubbing off on him, too. "Okay," she said.

Robin clambered into a small depression in the ground and motioned to Raven, who followed him. He looked around for a moment, then pushed a rock aside. Raven heard the clamor of grinding gears and saw that the rock platform she was standing on was lowering itself into the island, into a clearly artificial pit. She shared a worried glance with Robin.

A door opened in front of them.

"Base V," said a recorded voice. "Please enter now."

The two Titans went through the door, and the elevator went up behind them. Looking around, Raven saw a vast chamber filled with crackling devices and devoid of people, except one familiarly suited person hacking away with a power welder.

"Chang," Robin called. The suit spun.

"Ahhh," said the man. "Back for more?"

"What're you working on right now?" asked Robin. Raven was startled at his clipped tone and brash attitude. Robin, she thought, had the ability to change himself quickly. Even she could barely tell that the brusque, even vicious tone was an act—in fact, maybe it wasn't an act. He would make a dangerous criminal. In fact, he already had, she thought.

Looking up again, she saw Robin had already hoisted Chang up in his grip. She grimaced as he slammed the rather-frail looking man against the wall. Chang was apparently far too used to this; he didn't even squirm. It disturbed her.

"Robin," she said quietly.

Robin turned to her, opened his mouth, and then saw Chang watching. Robin's eyes had softened for a moment, but he turned back to the supplier and shoved him back. A little less roughly, she noted; or hoped, anyway.

"Well, Chang?" he asked.

"Why don't you listen to your friend," said Chang. He grinned greasily. "Unless you'd like…"

"What were you welding just now?" Robin asked. He motioned to the worktable Chang had been bent over.

"Welding? I was simply minding my own business, when—"

"You're a terrible liar," Raven said.

"The last time you said that was when you told me that nuke was actually a new and improved toilet paper roll," Robin said.

Raven couldn't help herself. She smirked.

"Did you believe him?"

Robin coughed and raised a fist. "Well, Chang?"

Chang winced.

"Energy adaptor," he said. "Converts light energy into a high-voltage power supply."

Robin stood up and let Chang fall. "Raven, can you take that thing…"

He stopped. "Wait." His eyes scanned the room furiously. "Duck!"

Raven didn't see how Chang had triggered it, but some kind of plasma gun turret—several of them—swung out of the walls. Chang got to his feet and ran out, laughing hysterically. Raven quickly flew over to Robin.

"Come on," Robin said. "You guard against that side, I'll take this one." He pulled out his staff and somehow deflected the globules that approached him in whirls of motion. Raven tried to push aside the hot plasma with her powers, but it was pouring in incessantly, and after a few minutes, both Titans felt themselves tiring.

"Raven," Robin said. "Teleport us."

"Can't," Raven said. "It'd take too long to focus. You'd have to cover all of the shots while I gathered myself." She considered briefly. "I can still fly, maybe. I'll take us up through that skylight."

She pointed up at the ceiling. Robin grimaced.

"_Through_ it?"

"Yes," Raven said. "I…"

Suddenly, she felt something hot spatter over her cloak. She cried out as she felt it burn through the cloak into her back; then, more impacts, sizzling, and she was looking up at the ceiling. Robin's eyes widened and he jumped over her, pulling out another staff, seeming to be spinning them now on opposite sides, warding off the shots—mostly—with Azar-knew-what kind sixth sense.

"Are you all right?" he managed to say.

"Yeah," she said, quickly centering herself and reciting her mantra. "Just keep it up for one more second and I'll be able to…"

She gathered her powers to her and blasted up from the floor, shooting a giant black fist through the skylight as she did, and enveloping her and Robin in a black swell that let them out onto the roof a moment later.

* * *

_89. They won't run away almost ever._

_I was in an evil scientist's the other day when Robin and I tripped his security. I was distracted for a second and went down, but, in the face of some serious danger, Robin managed to cover us both while I got us out of there. And he did it with style. _

Raven sighed. Perhaps she just shouldn't include justifications.

_ 90. They won't leave behind things close to them. Unless they, um, fall. _

_While this comparison is deeply stretching it, Robin won't leave behind his friends no matter the cost. You can't argue that he's a devoted, loyal guy, and pretty smart, too, I must say. Well-read and well-educated… and there's that mask. It certainly gives him the air of mystery man, Robin._

_Bananas don't leave behind trees, which are quite literally 'close' to them. Unless, of course, they fall from the tree. Robin has had some dangerous moments, too—see 'Slade' for details. _

_91. They provide energy for exertions._

_As we just decided, Robin helps get me out of tight spots. Using his energy. And bananas are a valuable source of caloric intake in a well-balanced diet. _

* * *

She was exhausted—had needed to meditate before they'd gone out, and had expended a great deal of power—but they were now on their way back home, which meant Raven-transport.

"Are we there yet?" she asked.

He looked at her oddly. "You're the one flying."

"Yeah, well, you're the one watching."

"We're about half an hour away from the island."

She groaned. "Half an _hour?_"

"Some patient, meditating sorceress _you_ are."

"I'm hungry," she said. "And tired. You wouldn't like me when I'm tired."

"Are you sure?" he asked, a hint of a laugh in his voice. "Well, we _are_ in a city."

"I didn't exactly bring my purse for a shopping trip," she said.

"Do you even have a purse?"

"Not really," she said.

Robin held up his communicator. "Remember this?"

"You can _buy_ things with that?"

Robin sighed.

"Sigh all you want, Bird Boy. You never seem to get ruffled when Starfire doesn't understand these things. 'Well, Starfire'—edge closer—'it's like this: when a man loves a woman very much…'"

"Oh, shut up," he said, coloring. "That is _not_ true."

_Really?_ she wanted to ask.

"Just take us somewhere," he said.

She considered. "Waffles?"


	9. 92 to 96

_IX._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. But wait, did a plot suddenly materialize from nowhere?

As usual, thank you, reviewers. I recently realized that FF deleted the email addresses (way back in Chapters 1 & 2). The formatting is unbelievable. If you're interested, Raven's email address is "ravensdadcanbeatyourdad(at)jumpmail . com". Control Freak's was just "megachars(at)jumpmail . com".

* * *

Raven stumbled out of the waffle shop.

"That didn't go so well," she said.

"Maybe you shouldn't have said that about illegal immigrants."

"I told you. I didn't say _illegal_ immigrants, I said—"

"Well, that's how he _heard_ it."

"We got waffles, okay?"

"Those don't count as waffles. They're—they're not round, they're—I don't know, but it's definitely not a convex shape."

"They're perfectly adequate waffles."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "They're like the squashed, pitiful, crying remains of what used to be waffles."

"Whatever," she said.

"Don't whatever me, missy."

"And what," she found herself saying, almost mischievously, "are you going to do about it?"

"Well…" he said in a low voice—almost a leer—

A garbage can exploded in a flurry of black. _Damn it—stupid…_

"Bothering you?" Robin was using the same unnerving voice.

"Shut up," she said thickly. "I'm tired." A sewer grate flung itself at a dumpster.

"Looks like you've got plenty of energy to me."

_Think of something witty, something that'll shut him up effectively and impress him at the same time, not that that's really a primary goal—_

"Go away."

_Yeah, *that* was a good one._

"Oh, _that_ was a good one," he said.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Saying what I'm thinking." She tried to make a mock-pout, but her face, having never contorted into such a—coquettish?—expression before, collapsed into a typically depressed, drooling, _tired_ grimace. At least, that was how it felt. Extremely tired.

He looked at her curiously. "I'm not the telepath here."

"I do wonder, sometimes," she said. She saw a sleeping baby in a carriage and lost her train of thought in jealousy.

"Let's get a taxi," she slurred. A mailbox imploded to emphasize the point.

"How will that help?"

"Obviously, getting us to the Tower more quickly. And letting me take a nap."

"We're _at_ the coastline," he said, with an arched eyebrow.

"What?" She looked up. They were.

"…super," she deadpanned. Unfortunately, shards of lamppost proved either her ire or her drowsy lack of control.

"Don't kill the messenger."

_Why doesn't *he* ever get tired?_

"Why don't _you_ ever get tired?" she said.

"What? It's not like I don't sleep."

"I think you're a robot. Again." She poked him with a black tendril. Being tired was making her strangely uninhibited. But he didn't mind, it seemed.

"You sound like you've been eating antifreeze."

"You ate it first."

"You liked it more. Inhibition releaser and—ow! Don't poke me there."

* * *

Raven and Robin finally returned to the Tower well past two. As they walked into the main gate, Raven yawned, tripped, cursed, and fell into the ground. Chairs disassembled themselves. She blushed, but luckily Robin didn't laugh.

"It's late, I know," he said. Such patronization usually grated with Raven, but she knew he wasn't just being a jerk.

"Yeah," she said into the floor.

Robin stepped away, and Raven evaluated just how little she wanted to get up. Very little indeed, though she did want a cup of herbal tea. She wanted it quite badly, in fact. So badly she could smell the scent in front of her, feel the warmth on…

"Hm," she said. There really was herbal tea in front of her. Robin bent down and handed her the cup.

"Here," he said. "Have fun camping out."

"I will," she said. At least for now. What could it hurt?

* * *

_92. They have certain household uses._

_ Bringing herbal tea to you when you really need it, giving you sustenance when you really need it, beating up Beast Boy, tripping up Beast Boy… these are things Robin and bananas help with around the Tower._

_93. They're good at opening cans, surprisingly._

_ Robin showed me this banana-shaped can opener in his belt. Funnily enough, it's called a bat-banana-can-opener. What the hell he has _that_ for, I refuse to ask. _

_ 94. They tend to end up horizontal much of the time._

_ Most fights we get into with competent villains, Robin goes sprawling once or twice. And if you've read any of the stories from Megatherium's breed—let's just say Robin is horizontal is an entirely different way. As for bananas, they, uh, lie on tables horizontally. _

_ 95. Probably because both are arguably desirable._

_ Robin does have lots of good qualities, and bananas are tasty snacks, I've found._

* * *

_February 8__th__._

Raven was floating in the kitchen. She had awoken when Robin had picked her up to take her to her bed, and nearly zapped him silly. After getting in an apology and a few hours of sleep, she had resolved to solve this—inhibition problem—by continuously meditating until breakfast. Her mind drifted to her banana list. A few days left, but just a few similarities left. And still there was a gassy villain to find.

She figured it was probably strangely Beast Boy-like thoughts like that which were making it hard to meditate. She felt urges to groan, grin, or roll her eyes.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," she said.

"Hey, Raven." It was Robin, up already, it seemed. He really didn't sleep.

"Hi," she said. "Thanks for the tea last night. And the—everything else."

"Thanks for the grammar," he replied.

She exerted a brief bit of control and a black fist punched him on the shoulder. He winced.

"Whiner," she said. "It wasn't that hard."

"Still sore from last night," he began.

"Don't make up excuses, _mister_," she said, a smile playing about her lips. Then she realized she might be sounding a bit too—convivial—and the smile disappeared. Robin was looking very confused.

"Are you all right? I don't hear anything blowing up," he said.

"Funny," she said, for what felt like the hundredth time.

"No, I'm serious," he said.

"Great," she said. "That makes me feel better. Glad to know you enjoy having a time bomb in your Tower so much."

"_Our_ Tower, and for your information, I _do_," Robin said. "Why don't you ever believe me on that?"

She smiled, again, which seemed to disconcert him. "I was joking. Or at least, I was hoping to draw another one of these speeches out."

His expression softened and he chuckled. "Still," he said. "If you were feeling emotion, why wasn't anything going on?"

"I don't know," she said. But she was thinking about what he'd said now. "You know, Robin," she continued, turning to face him, "maybe it would be easier if you explained some more things, too. Those images I saw in your mind."

He was tensing up; she could feel it in the air. "Even though we've talked about my history—we've even lived it."

"It's nothing personal," he said. "I'd just rather not talk about that."

She raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like the one excuse you never accept."

He opened his mouth. Then he stopped.

"Okay," he said. "What do you want to know?"

* * *

_96. By the time they get to me, they've got troubled histories and experiences._

_ It would hardly be appropriate to recount Robin's origin; let's just say that he's not had too easy of a life but he's made what he could out of it. Bananas, I admit, have only the experience of being torn away from their tree, washed, sprinkled with pesticides, and possibly processed._

* * *

_February 12__th__._

Raven walked into the ops room and sat down, flipping _War and Peace _open and scanning the text to find where she'd left off. She had mostly settled into her typical rhythm when she realized that Beast Boy and Cyborg were looking at her oddly.

"What?" she snapped.

"Nothing, Rave," Beast Boy said. She wanted to tell him not to call her 'Rave,' as if she were a European discotheque. "You just, uh… You seem like you've been in a really good mood and all, and, well…"

"_Well_, what?"

"You were humming," Cyborg said. "It was—weird."

"I listen to music," she said. "So?"

"_You_ were _humming_, Raven," Cyborg said. "You've been humming to all your reading for the last four days."

"And I haven't seen you on the roof at _all!_" chimed in Beast Boy. "All that work on the tripwire…"

"BB!" shouted Cyborg.

"Uh… the… the _highwire, _I meant, heh…"

"Anyway," Cyborg said. "Just wonderin' if maybe, you, uh…"

"No," Raven said, closing her book and walking out.

_Have I really been unusually happy? I mean, Robin and I have been spending time together. He's—much more sensible than the others. It's possible. Maybe._

Then a chime rang, summoning the Titans to a meeting.

* * *

Raven went into the room. She was last again.

"All right," Robin said. "Hey, Raven."

"Hi," she said, and sat down.

"So, what's this meeting about, dude?" asked Beast Boy.

"Red X," Robin replied, with a grimace. There was a brief silence.

"I've made a few deductions," he said. "After seeing the kinds of weapons Red X used, I remembered some synthetic gases I was developing in December. They were too volatile for my taste, and I was actually going to dump them out when Beast Boy and the elephant landed on the roof. After that, I forgot about the whole matter, didn't even go into my lab till well after New Year's."

He paused and checked whether Beast Boy was asleep yet.

"When I did, I found it was messed up, but it was hardly a surprise to me. The whole Tower was messed up. I figured someone had just barged in, we were all crazy then, and I didn't know why. Then I remembered the magician at the New Year's Party."

Robin looked around the room dramatically.

"He had come from upstairs. He was the only one I saw, and then, after that, the gases were released and we all behaved strangely. Everyone was in costume. X must've come and stolen the gases from my room—he was probably looking for the Red X belt and the accompanying xenothium."

"Is that how you spell it?" asked Cyborg.

"Yes," Robin said. "But how can you tell how I spelled it from me _saying_ it?"

"Subtitles," said Cyborg.

Robin shrugged.

"Whatever," he said. "Anyway, X didn't find any xenothium, so he took the opiates, the knockout gas, the invisibility smoke, the hallucinogens, and the explosive gas. He probably experimented on people…"

Raven remembered the homeless people she'd rescued Robin from. They'd had some kind of drugs with them…

"He also," she said, "was watching you during that homeless people incident."

"What?" asked Robin.

"You were acting strangely afterwards, remember?" she said. "And they'd been given some kind of opiate. I'd bet he was experimenting there."

"Ah. That would explain that missing block of memory," Robin said. "Anyway—I remembered that he was looking for the… the… the SLADE from Gizmo, and I wondered what connection there could be between Slade!"

He broke off in a bit of a sweat.

"Unnaturally excited by this man," Raven said to no one in particular.

"Slade," Robin muttered. "I… I wondered what connection there would be between the SLADE and Red X. And remember, Mad Mod showed up under some kind of influence, too. Mad Mod, X, and Control Freak. There had to be a connection. I remembered Control Freak's claim that he had experimented with drugs—and of course Control Freak had hardware of all kinds, modified from the clean-Slade—excuse me—clean-slate versions. So Raven and I went there to examine what was missing."

He cleared his throat, looking rather uncomfortable at this point.

"Raven pointed out Control Freak's video card was missing. Combine that with Mad Mod's hypno-technology and the, the, the, the SLADE's ability to project energy, and I was beginning to see a picture forming vaguely."

Beast Boy's snoring had finally reached an audible pitch. Robin ignored it.

"So Raven and I visited Chang, and found out he had the missing link—an energy adapter. If he could put these parts together, Red X could convert energy from the, um, er, SLADE to power a holo-projector for Mad Mod's hypnoscreens, at any point, anywhere. This device is called a total energy-reflecting radiation apparatus, a TERRA."

Beast Boy was startled awake. "Where?" he said. Raven felt her eyes snapping into the rolled position.

"So," Robin continued, "Red X is going to want this adapter next. In case you're interested…"

"I know I'm not," Raven muttered. Robin ignored her.

"…it's called an adapting zirconium agitation refractor," Robin said, "or an AZAR for short."

He grinned. Raven, very briefly, smiled at him. Beast Boy's jaw dropped.

"I think he's making up these acronyms," Cyborg whispered to the green Titan. Robin looked at him whispering, and for some reason, grimaced, as if it were something highly disturbing.

"The AZAR is here in the Tower right now," he said. "This all leads me to believe that X's target will very soon be us, right here."

"Not like that's unusual," Raven said.

"I know," he said, rather ruefully. "Be on the lookout, everyone. Dismissed."


	10. 97 to 98

_X._

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

What do you think, finish for Christmas?

* * *

Raven woke up two days later in a panic. Despite her best efforts, she could think of no more ways to compare Robin and bananas. And today it was due. She looked at her clock.

February 14, 6:59 AM.

She had precisely seventeen hours to finish her project.

Oh, and wasn't there some significance to this day? Other than her project being due. There was something, she remembered it vaguely.

She walked downstairs, poured herself a cup of herbal tea, took a banana out from behind her cloak, and ate it. _I really have been getting fond of bananas_, she said. _I never used to eat them so regularly_.

Robin was, as usual, awake, and drinking coffee in the next room. She walked in. "Morning," she said.

"Morning, Raven." He smiled at her and put down the file he was reading. "Happy Valentine's Day."

She blushed. Ah. That was what she'd forgotten.

"I don't do Valentine's…"

He took a gift-wrapped box out of his utility belt and handed it to her. She looked at it suspiciously, but his face was quite innocently happy.

"Well," she said, "I suppose I could make an exception." And she opened it. Then, she looked up at him, amused.

"Banana-flavored chocolates. How long did it take you to find these?" she asked.

"Not too long," he said. "It was worth it. Your banana obsession, after all…"

"For my list," she said.

"Still, you have to admit. It's kind of weird that you're showing so much dedication to it."

A light bulb went off in Raven's head.

* * *

_97. It's weird to write a 100 comparisons list about either._

_ Who would compare bananas to anything? And who would compare Robin to anything, especially for a school assignment? _

_ 98. It's even weirder to write one about both._

_ On their own, either Robin or a banana would be an eccentric choice for a comparison list. But both—how bizarre is that?_

* * *

Raven went back downstairs, to find Robin packing some things into his utility belt. He looked up as she came in.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go out somewhere."

Raven hesitated. "Not that I don't want to…"

"This is already going better than I thought it would," he said. She pretended to glare at him.

"…but I do have that paper due today," she finished.

"I'm sure inspiration will come," he said. "You only get one chance a year to mock all those lovebirds."

"Aren't you one of those lovebirds, _Robin_?" she said. "I'm sure Starfire will be around any second now looking for you." That did seem to take him aback. Almost a little too much so. She tried to change the subject. "And now you're advocating procrastination?"

"Starfire might not wake up until tonight," he said. It wasn't that great of an excuse, but she wasn't going to press it. "And it's all so I can spend time with," he bowed, "my fellow lovebird Raven."

He leaned in, and gave her what seemed to be a seductive look. It wasn't, of course. Of course not. She couldn't help her autonomous nervous system's reaction, right, couldn't stop her heart pounding and being acutely aware of her breathing.

"Please," he whispered.

Raven decided to hell with the paper.

"Where to?"

* * *

"This restaurant again?" asked Raven.

They sat in the Crown Restaurant for lunch.

"It's for thematic symmetry," Robin said.

Raven rolled her eyes. "As if our lives are a story or something."

"Every life is a story," said Robin.

"I guess," said Raven. "Did you need to put it so dramatically?"

A waiter brought them a heart-shaped cake. Raven looked at Robin suspiciously. He shrugged.

"What do you expect them to have on Valentine's Day?"

She wasn't _entirely_ convinced it wasn't a prank. But it was good cake.

* * *

"You're taking me to the circus?" asked Raven.

"Yeah," said Robin. "Something wrong with that?"

"Well…" She hesitated. "I just thought you might not be so comfortable, since… you know." She cleared her throat. "What you told me."

"I've got to make peace with it sometime, Raven," he said. He gave a not-quite convincing smile. "Over and over, actually. Every year."

She impulsively put her arm around him. He spilled his drink, stiffened, convulsed, looked frightened, shifted into Titans-go stance, and finally relaxed.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

* * *

"…if I don't want to be taken here with Starfire, why would I want to make a 'sojourn to the mall of shopping' with you?"

"Because you loathe my costume? I'm offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change it up," he said.

Raven considered, rubbing her chin.

"Not that I'm a fashion expert or anything," she said.

"I'm willing," he said, "to suffer for the greater good."

"And what's that?"

"Avoiding those piercing comments on my manhood, which are the Dark Angel's specialty," he said theatrically.

"Dark Angel?" she said, trying to maintain a nonchalant expression.

"You know it," he said. "Do your worst."

"Not the mask, I suppose."

"Anything but that."

She continued to rub her chin, but a devious smile had crept onto her face. "Do my worst, you say."

* * *

"I guess I did say to do your worst."

"Yes. You sure did."

"The jeans were normal, but why do I have to wear this shirt? I look like a Fallout Boy groupie on crystal meth."

"You said anything."

"I didn't mean _this!_"

"But your bangs are so… emo."

"I hope you can see this glare from under them."

"Fine. Wear the stupid 'Starry Night' shirt."

"But we're in the middle of the street now. I can't change."

"So why are you complaining if you're not going to do anything about it?"

Shrug. "To be the most annoying creature on the face of this planet?"

"Don't worry. Beast Boy is still alive."

Robin sighed. "This hairdo was totally unnecessary."

"I think it's… dashing."

He saw a smile peeking out from under her hood and decided to shut up.

* * *

"Wow," she said. "Elaborate."

"Thanks," he said.

Robin had, in the end, taken her to one final place, a giant library, or bookstore, or something. It was just rows and rows of extremely old-looking books, with leathery covers and bumpy spines. She wasn't sure exactly why there wasn't anyone else there, though.

"Why isn't there anyone else?" she asked in a whisper. It seemed weird to talk loudly here, after all.

"I pulled some strings," he said. "I didn't know exactly what you wanted, so I thought… what could it hurt if there were a few more than you could read at once?"

She looked at him inscrutably. "That was," she said, "really thoughtful."

He smiled at her. "I have a lot of thoughts to be full of."

"You're definitely full of _something_, Boy Wonder."

"Charm?"

"Smarm."

"No harm in that."

Raven rolled her eyes.

* * *

Raven and Robin left the library hours later, a stack of books floating behind them as they walked back to the tower.

_Six pm. Only six more hours until it's over. Six more,_ she thought.

Apparently she'd thought it aloud. "Haven't I heard that before?" asked Robin.

"This time it's more panic about it than wanting it to end," Raven said. "My assignment is due in six hours."

"Oh," said Robin. "You mean your list? Can I help?"

"I don't really know what you could do," she said. "Dress even more fruit-like, maybe."

"If it'd help," he said. Raven thought for a moment. It didn't really have much to do with the paper, but, maybe…?

"Come with me," she said, taking his arm.

* * *

A high bluff overlooked the raging sea outside Titans Tower. A pile of rocks lay next to a ridge. The evening air was cold, yet particularly unfitting for February, more like an autumn's cold, almost. Waves crashed.

Raven concentrated briefly and the pile of rocks separated into a long stairway up into the clouds. Her hand shook—well, she was cold. There was, after all, no reason for her to be nervous.

"Go ahead," she said. "Take the stairs up. I'll meet you at the top."

Robin looked at her oddly as she started to fly upwards. "Can't you just telepo…"

She had already flown out of sight.

"Gee, thanks," he said to the open air. _Too distracted?_

He surveyed the rocks. They looked incredibly unstable and the sea below looked dangerous.

Over the last few weeks he'd really gotten to know Raven. And he was intrigued. He wanted more. She was an enigma. She was withdrawn, but sometimes her wit couldn't be suppressed. She was sarcastic, but sometimes so… vulnerable, too. She didn't like to talk about her problems, but she would move mountains, literally, if he, or her friends, really needed her.

He looked again at the floating staircase.

Getting past this barrier would entail care and diligence, unswerving attention, and…

And… what?

Casting a glance sideways, he stepped onto the first rock and started to go up.

* * *

Raven floated several hundred feet above the island, feeling around carefully for the large, smooth rock in the canyon with her powers.

She'd wanted a meditation post in the clouds for a long time, but always dismissed it as more of a fantasy than anything. Then—after Robin had mentioned a safe place where she could go—she'd gone into the canyon and found a twenty-foot- diameter rock, naturally eroded, smooth, and, probably, safe, and brought it up.

She'd been up there twice now, in a particularly foul mood, she would haul out her rock, go with it to four hundred feet, survey the terrain, and sit down on the rock, safely corralled in a black grip. It wasn't likely that anyone else would ever find it; she made it safely under cloud cover and too low for radar or planes, but too high for casual observers.

And now, she was going to show Robin.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but she'd been paying so much attention to him (and bananas) for the last six weeks. She thought that their connection, always fairly strong, if hidden, had somehow changed; and she didn't really know _what_ it was anymore.

Well, if she was being honest with herself, she knew what she, somewhere, deep down, hoped it was. But she also knew that it couldn't be, because… well, what about Starfire? That was a niggling question, all right. But somehow she'd forgotten Starfire. For the last while, she'd been preoccupied.

Raven wondered at herself. _Something's changed around here_, she repeatedly thought.

* * *

Red X crept up to the Tower, rappelled up the side, and sprayed something over the window on the third floor. _Their security's worthless. Building's too big, island's too small—too many windows._

The glass finished melting away and Red X slipped in, landing quietly in a storage room, as he'd suspected. There might be minor technological treasures in here—by the looks of it, the boxes were Cyborg's.

But he had to keep his eye on the goal. He'd have used the star mirror before but couldn't draw attention—nothing like a laser beam from the sky to spoil your cover.

_No one should be on this floor. All the better. _

Chances were, Robin would be keeping such a sensitive piece of equipment in his room, in a vault, or else on his person. When Red X got it, the TERRA would be complete. And as soon as he could finish his TERRA… well, there would be money in it. Other consequences could wait until later.

Red X spotted a computer terminal and quickly sliced in—Cyborg's codes weren't breakable by brute force or by Red's current equipment, but schematics of the Tower were available easily…

If it were in a vault, it would be on floor eight. The vault by Robin's room. Probably where the Red X gear was stored too.

"Kid," he murmured, "don't store all your eggs in one basket."

* * *

Raven anxiously brushed off the rock again, making sure it wasn't loose, couldn't fall—making sure her control wasn't actively necessary to keep the rock stable and floating.

Robin. Could he maybe… But Starfire was her best friend. Control, peace, harmony, tranquility. If only she knew what she wanted. And… what he wanted. It was… confusing.

Maybe she lived for these moments of uncertainty. Maybe everyone did. In the moment before a roller coaster dove down, Cyborg, who enjoyed those contraptions, had once told her that he felt the terror of being alive and not knowing what was going to happen—even though his processor would invariably tell him it would be safe. Safety was what Raven had always sought, but now here she was… embracing uncertainty.

* * *

No, Robin hadn't been so foolish. The vault was impregnable, but Robin's inter-Tower messages weren't; and they gave clear notice that either he or his second-in-command would carry the AZAR at all times.

Judging by the name of the device, Robin's second-in-command would be Raven. A far more… stimulating person to be around, for Red X. But neither was in the Tower right now, it seemed.

They couldn't be out on a case, could they? No, they wouldn't be out on a _mission_ without the others…

Red X climbed out of the window and down the side of the building, looking around a little aimlessly.

What could they be doing out together? Surely not—

Well, Raven had always struck him as Robin's type… or at least, Robin had struck him as Raven's type… or at least, Robin had struck him with a bo staff. Both of Robin's female teammates were charming girls, of course, but Starfire was the kind you would use a pickup line on, whereas Raven was the kind you would meet in a cave on the side of a mountain five hundred miles from anyone. He himself had had the occasional fantasy of being a hero, standing at the peak of mountains and…

Now that he thought about it, what the hell was a pile of rocks doing on the promontory, stretching into the clouds? These are the kind of things you're going to have to notice if you're going to break into the big leagues, he told himself. In fact—what was that on the top rock? Some kind of fizzing black sparks…

Well, that was a gimme.


	11. 99 to 100

_XI._

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

* * *

Raven opened her eyes when she heard a footfall behind her. She had been concentrating inward so much that she hadn't sensed Robin's arrival—but then, she realized, it wasn't him. It was Red X.

She jumped into a battle-ready stance. But he was fast, and hadn't waited to introduce himself—he was attacking her with a barrage of weapons, and it was all she could do immediately to dodge them or toss them away with her powers. After a minute, though, she noticed he'd thrown something that missed and clattered to the ground, and seized her opportunity. Space was limited—he could hardly escape easily. She reached out with her powers and seized him in a black bubble, hovering a few feet above the rock. To her surprise, he stopped squirming quickly.

"Nice night, Raven!" he said brightly.

"It was better when I was alone," she replied.

"Really?" His voice dripped with insincerity. "There isn't a Boy Wonder huffing and puffing his way up that you're waiting for? Is it a date? Shouldn't you have given him a ride?"

Raven's face remained impassive, but internally, she felt herself forcing down a tumult of rage. Annoyance. Whatever. _It's not a date_, she wanted to say, but realized it couldn't sound anything but pathetic. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and focused her grip on Red X's mask.

"Let's see what you look like," she muttered, and ripped it off. Revealing, naturally, another mask.

"It's masks all the way down, lovebird," she heard him say, faintly, as if from far away. "Always wear three masks. Warm and useful." She frowned… felt her concentration slipping… what was going on?

"You know, Raven," he was saying, "why did you want to find out who I am? For Robin, right? Because I get under his skin? I am, in fact, under his skin. What is it they say about Batman? That his secret identity, whatever it is, is actually Batman? Ever thought that it might be the same for Robin?" The skull mask seemed to be grinning now. "I've had time to think about it, you know. This suit is Robin's secret identity, not whatever's under that mask. There's your secret. I won't charge for it."

Raven was trying to summon her powers, but nothing seemed to be in her grasp. "Don't worry," the thief was saying. "I think, given that, you've got a shot. Starfire's the one that you notice at first." His voice was echoing more and more; her sight was blurring. "But _you're_ the one you keep noticing after you visit a few times. Especially if this," he said, pointing to himself, "is what you are on the inside. Yes, I think you've got a real shot with him."

She realized what the thing he'd thrown was—knockout gas—hm. She'd unconsciously released him some time ago, and she was falling backwards. She felt his arms—rather strong and wiry—really quite a lot like Robin's—catching her—now he was saying something again, that skull mask looking smugly into her eyes now—

"If he picks the cheerleader, it's his loss. But then again, maybe you can come find me. I won't hide."

"Super," she mumbled, as she fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

Robin, sweating slightly, pulled himself up onto the top rock, only to receive a kick in the face. He nearly went plummeting four hundred feet, but grappled onto a lower rock in time. Above him, a familiar skull mask peeked over the edge.

"Hand over the AZAR, Robin, and I'll be on my way," said X.

"Where's Raven?"

"She's fine, just a little bit unconscious," replied the thief. "You can get right back to your teenage romance in a second."

"It's not a romance," he uselessly explained.

"You don't have to justify it to me," said X, laughing. "Some people frown on inter-office relations. Not me, I don't care."

Robin made a surprise spring at X, who was caught-off guard. Robin pressed his advantage, and had nearly forced X to the edge of the rock when he saw X dive off to the side and envelop Raven in one of his trademark red X's and hold her over the edge of the rock.

"The AZAR for the Azar girl," X said.

"You're not a killer," Robin said, concealing his sudden fear.

"You're not going to let her die."

Robin shrugged. "Well, I don't have the AZAR."

X frowned. "I'm not stupid, Robin. I searched her. You have it or your second-in-command has it. She doesn't have it. QED."

"_Cyborg_ is my second-in-command."

A brief silence. "Well, damn," X said, and dropped Raven. Cursing, Robin leapt after her, willing himself to catch up with her. At last, he felt her rather cold skin, wrapped his arm around her, shot his grappling hook wildly, and swung to a halt on a rock about midway up.

The fall seemed to have stimulated Raven; her eyelids were fluttering. They popped open.

"Ow," she said.

"You all right?"

"Damage mainly to my ego," she replied. "It's not like we weren't warned, either."

Robin clapped his hand on her shoulder. "You did fine," he said rather lamely. To his surprise, she nodded.

"You aren't hurt, are you?" he asked.

She shook her head, and a familiar gritty determination appeared in her expression. "Let's go after him."

* * *

Raven teleported them to the sixth floor, where Cyborg had been putting the final touches on his last mural, just in time to see Red X reach into an X-bound Cyborg's leg storage compartment and grab a small object. Robin threw a disk, and Raven tried picking up and telekinetically hurling a nearby can of paint, but X was too agile, and ducked down the hall. The two Titans raced after him.

"We've got him," Robin said. "This is a dead end."

"More than dead," Raven replied. "We're headed towards Beast Boy's room."

As they rounded the corner, though, they saw X pull up short before Beast Boy's door.

"Not even going in there with this mask on," said the thief. He was fumbling with what Raven figured had to be the TERRA, and held it up. "Now, let's give this a whirl!"

He pressed something and Raven felt her eyes black out and her mind suddenly overflow with images, of bugs, bats, a tub full of bananas, a demon rising, orange flames licking at the bodies of her friends. Then it was replaced with a stark, strange feeling of absence, a complete null that froze her veins.

But no, she thought, she would_ not_ let her fears control her again. Concentrating her mental powers, she chanted slowly, and felt her eyes regaining sensation—saw Robin next to her clutching his head, and X walking confidently past them. Raven summoned her strength and hurled Beast Boy's door off its hinges at X, who barely managed to duck and whirl around.

"I'm not afraid to accept my fear anymore," she said.

"Of course," he said. He seemed to be frowning. "But what _are_ you unable to handle? I've got an idea about that." He flicked a switch.

Suddenly, Raven heard a voice, a sibilant voice from the TERRA. She felt her eyes shut forcibly and her stomach whirl around. The bottom seemed to melt out of her heart, some kind of fizzy sensation like the stars flying behind a Disney fairy. She was vaguely conscious of dropping to her knees with a feeling of warm weakness pumping through her veins.

_You care, _whispered the Terra. _You care about him. You love him._

She felt the surge destroying her like a tidal wave of sugar, drowning, rotting, and destroying all of her carefully-wrought calm. Blasts of energy ricocheted off into the walls of the Tower, how could anyone fail to notice…

_You can't handle seeing him happy with Starfire, you can't handle seeing anyone happy because you can't handle loving him, _said the Terra. _You mock him, even in your banana list, because you know you're weak-kneed for him._

"That's stupid," she said thickly, trying to resist. But she couldn't resist, resisting just made it worse, made it echo, made her flesh tingle and distress…

Well… so?

What if it were true?

She had embraced her fear, after all. Why not face… this?

So what could go wrong?

So many things, actually. Maybe he wouldn't feel the same way. Maybe he couldn't be her best friend anymore—maybe it would be too awkward. Maybe—well, definitely, that would hurt. Maybe she could hurt others… but she took that risk every day by continuing to exist. A little demon girl with a conscience would have killed herself long ago. And she'd realized that long ago, but still, here she was.

Maybe she would hurt Starfire… That was a concern. She would do anything for her friends. She would have laid her life down for Starfire, or any of the Titans. Maybe not Beast Boy. No, Beast Boy too, of course. Digression. Starfire crying because of her, Starfire locked up in her room, Starfire alone and…

But by this point, she realized, it was too late; her rational thought couldn't have forestalled it if it had wanted to. The feeling was there; it had seeped in underneath her guards, like the scent of approaching spring outside entered the Tower, even in her own room. She had let the feeling in and it wasn't going to leave. Starfire would have to wait.

If, in fact, it got that far. Somehow, her single past romantic relationship had not left her feeling secure about—well—anyone liking her. Let alone… him. And yet, right now, she didn't feel worried about that. She felt nothing except a deep happiness she couldn't remember at all ever having felt before.

And then her eyes were opening and a smile was spreading across her face. X had disappeared, but that wouldn't stop her. Nothing could stop her, she thought, looking down at Robin on the ground, shaking his head; and as she looked at him she couldn't stop smiling.

* * *

Red X had just made it up to the roof of the Tower when he found his progress suddenly halted by a huge, white, incorporeal bird. The next second, he was on the ground, the TERRA had rolled to his feet, and the bird rushed into it. With a frying sound. And then, the silent shape of Raven floating in the air replaced the bird.

"Oops," she said.

_Damn it. _He winced as the charred equipment fell to the ground. This wasn't, however, the time for regrets. A certain bird looked like it had his number next.

He turned to flee into the Tower via the other roof door, but suddenly, it burst open and Robin was standing there, a little bit shakily.

"Give it up," Robin said, running forward—

—and tripping on a tripwire someone had set there. Robin found himself barreling head over heels into the ground—and Raven, who had been flying forward, also rammed into him. She fell over in the air, and there was confusion for a second.

Red X knew a chance when he saw one. He reached for the X utility belt and leapt over the edge of the Tower, disappearing into the darkness.

* * *

Raven gently lowered Robin to the roof's surface. "Beast Boy set up that tripwire. And now X got away."

"We got the TERRA. It's all right," Robin said, rubbing his forehead. "Well, you got it. You were great."

Raven smiled at him. She seemed to be doing that a lot recently, he thought, hopefully. Maybe she was actually…

"And you," she said, "were a banana." It was the lightest tone he'd ever heard from her. "I keep falling on you."

"Falling _for_ me, you mean," he said with his best smirk.

Much to his shock, she leaned over.

"Maybe I do," she said. Up close, he saw her eyes almost glowing lavender, felt a chilly, and yet somehow warm, touch on his skin, breathed in some kind of scent that made him want to lie down there forever. She seemed to be trembling—was it cold? No, not that cold—but nothing was exploding, either—

At least, nothing was until she kissed him.

* * *

_99. So, they may be a bit fruity and incandescent and irksomely tropical..._

_ 100. …but I really love bananas, too._

* * *

It was rather later that evening. Robin and Raven walked into the main room to find Beast Boy and Cyborg playing video games again. Starfire was chasing something around in the background, but very quietly.

"So, Raven," Robin said rather loudly. "Did you say you were going out of town?"

"Why, yes, Robin," Raven said. "Taking the Hershey Interstate, I think."

A couple of virtual cars skidded off the road. The two game-playing Titans were clearly not playing their game anymore, though studiously looking away from Raven and Robin.

"You'd better go pick up some supplies from the _closet_ then," he said.

At this, there was a frantic scuffling, and suddenly Beast Boy was hiding behind Cyborg, who was hiding behind the couch. Both of the living creatures had unconvincing grins on their faces.

"Look, we know about what you guys are doing," Robin said.

"You… you do?" said Beast Boy.

"Yes. And while I wouldn't do it myself, I can understand the reasons, I guess."

"Oh, good," said Cyborg. "So we don't have to explain?"

"Nope," said Raven. "You can come out of the closet."

Beast Boy looked crestfallen. "If we did it in broad daylight, that'd take all the fun out of it."

Raven stared. "I don't think you'd want to do it in broad daylight."

"We'd better not see you at it, either," said Robin.

"Oh, you won't," Cyborg said. "I've been working on nanosizing the cameras."

"…cameras?" asked Raven. "I definitely didn't want to know about recordings existing. And they say I'm freaky."

Beast Boy and Cyborg looked at each other nervously.

"Are we talking about the same thing?" asked Cyborg.

"Probably not," said Robin. "I'm really hoping not, actually."

"Are you two in a relationship?" Raven asked bluntly.

Beast Boy turned greener than usual. "No! Not that kind! A commander-agent relation—okay, that doesn't sound that much better. Whatever. Dude. We're spies!"

Raven and Robin sighed in unison.

"Oh. Also," Robin said, and Raven glanced at him, with suddenly tense eyes. "This might weird you out…"

* * *

"_What?_" shouted Starfire. "By 'more than friends,' do you mean that you and Robin are going—"

Suddenly, she seemed to realize something.

"Oh, no," she said. "I have lost the Quiet Game."

Raven stared.

"Is _that_ why you haven't talked for the last three weeks?"

Wide-eyed, she nodded.

Raven rolled her eyes.

* * *

Thanks for reviewing and reading this story. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the short epilogue.


	12. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

* * *

Raven (no last name given)  
February 18th, 2006  
Focus in Writing Nonfiction

Miss Raven,

Thank you for diligently completing this version of the assignment. I admit I hadn't expected that anyone would actually do it—hence why I included five other alternate assignments that did not involve so many difficulties. You were the only student who either didn't care or didn't read beyond page 1 of the instructions.

Reading over it has been an amusing experience, and I can see that you've used a lot of creativity in writing this. I should, however, point out that this was supposed to be one hundred _positive_ ways that the two objects were similar. Quite a few of these are negative—"Neither speaks Sanskrit" comes to mind.

Furthermore, this was not really supposed to be a creative assignment. Your creativity and your informal style are not encouraged in nonfiction writing—at least, if you're looking to be published somewhere reputable, like National Geographic or Playboy. If you had ever come into class or spoken with me at office hours, I could no doubt have informed you of all of these things earlier.

However, between the two of us, no one wants the publicity that would result if I gave you a D on this assignment. Plus, it was heartwarming that you got something out of it. Congratulations on getting four credits from the Jump City Fine Arts School. Come back for my next exciting class, Focus in Writing Biography.

Grade: A-

Professor P. Professorsen

* * *

Raven rolled her eyes. "Robin, he didn't like it," she said.

Robin rolled his chair over. Quickly, he scanned the email.

"He's right," he said. "I'm not very much like a banana after all."

"Well," Raven said, "maybe we'll see about that later."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Raven, are you suggesting—"

"No."

* * *

Later, Raven was looking at the Titansfans message board.

"They don't believe me," she said, nettled.

Robin looked over. "Why not?"

"They all insist I love Beast Boy and you love Starfire."

"Huh," Robin said. "Opposites attract, I guess."

"That only works with magnets."

"And electric charges," said Robin, smirking.

"Same thing in different reference frames," she said.

He smiled. "Finished that physics book?"

She nodded.

"Well, they probably just don't think you're you," he said.

"Nah, they're convinced of that. They just think they know me better than _I_ do."

"You never know," said Robin. "Someone might be watching your every movement."

"Yeah. I'm sure," said Raven.

* * *

"You should be," Red X said, flicking a button on Control Freak's remote, putting his legs up on the table, and grinning. It was good to know he'd been right. And, of course, introduced a little extra love in the world. It warmed the heart, plus, made people less effective in combat.

Well, fine. No TERRA. That device might have made things too easy, anyway. There might not be any more thrills in it. No, he'd heard of a different device, that wouldn't require assembly, and that might be less likely to draw attention, while serving him more or less as well as the TERRA would have.

Yes, now what was it called? He glanced at his notes. A transmitting refraction-initiating general occlusion navigator. Where was that again?

_The End_

* * *

Thanks for reading, and please send your reviews, questions, and/or comments.


	13. Note

_Note_

For those of you on the alert list for this story who may be interested, I've started uploading the sequel to this piece, _99 Problems_. It is more serious than this one.


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